Industrial Scale Production of Celestial Body Simulants

The technical objectives of this program are to develop a cost-effective process to deliver Celestial body simulants for the foreseeable future. Specifically, the technical objectives of this project are:?Deliver 3 metric tons of a lunar Mare simulant. A portion of the simulant will be bulk, excavation-grade that is compatible to the now depleted JSC-1a. Another portion of the simulant will be a technical grade simulant that has the proper amounts of glass and agglutinates included. Finally, a titanium-rich Mare will be produced. The correct concentrations of titanium are critical for mechanical and chemical process development and testing.?After the 3 metric tons of Mare simulant; be able to produce bulk simulant at $10,000 per ton. This will be 30% better than the NASA cost target specified in the original solicitation.?ZAP will deliver 1 metric ton of research grade Highlands type lunar simulant.?ZAP will deliver a documented process for producing low-cost, bulk mare simulants. After phase 2 project, estimated cost is: $5,000 per ton.?ZAP will test and demonstrate the applicability of the manufacturing process to produce other Celestial body materials. Examples include: Asteroid, Mars, probe reference samples, and dark glass.