Through the Artemis program, NASA and its partners envision a permanent, permanent presence on the Moon. This will include, on the one hand, the orbital Gateway station, and on the other hand, the installation of a surface base in the South Pole region.
Among the myriad technological challenges, the challenge of managing the waste that successive crews of astronauts will produce is no less important. To address this problem, NASA is launching the satellite Luna Recycling Challenge.
Reducing the human footprint on the moon
This is a call for projects that aim to advance the design and development of innovative recycling solutions for long-duration lunar missions.
Projects should propose ways to improve energy and water efficiency, and reduce non-usable waste and toxic emissions. The goal is to minimize the human footprint on the Moon as much as possible.
” As NASA prepares for future human missions to space, it will be essential to study how various waste streams, including solid waste, can be reduced, stored, treated and recycled in a space environment so that little or no waste needs to be disposed of and returned to Earth. “NASA explains,”
Digital Twins and Artificial Intelligence
The LunaRecycle Challenge consists of two components: Prototyping and Digital Twins. The digital twins will need to simulate the physical system. The advantage of this virtual approach is that it allows for multiple iterations without the need to systematically build a hardware prototype. It saves time and money. Candidates must also plan to manufacture one or more final products. The use of AI is encouraged to drive innovation to the limit.
To guide this work, NASA developed a mission scenario that includes technical details to consider. It describes a crew of eight astronauts who will remain on the Moon for 365 days and accumulate various types of solid waste: fabrics, food packaging, structural elements and other miscellaneous items.
Reduce water consumption and resource use on site.
Participants in the LunaRecycle Challenge must choose one or more categories of waste to process. Some recycling systems must be used outdoors, others inside a pressurized environment.
External installations must withstand extreme temperatures, highly abrasive lunar dust and static electricity, low gravity and zero atmospheric pressure. Internal recycling systems must respect volume and atmospheric pressure restrictions.
To further complicate the challenge, solutions must be adapted to the limited resources available. Thus, it will be necessary to minimize water consumption and possibly exploit in-situ resources such as lunar regolith.
Innovations that can benefit waste recycling on Earth
The last condition is that, ideally, the recycled materials should be able to be used to manufacture products useful to astronauts: utensils, napkins, storage containers, tools, etc.
NASA hopes that the solutions selected will boost recycling on our planet, inspire new ways of thinking about the life cycle of products and promote a circular economy.
