Multi-Use Solar Thermal System for Oxygen Production from Lunar Regolith [7227-060]

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI), in collaboration with the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) and Orbital Technologies Corporation (Orbitec), proposes to develop the multi-use solar thermal system for oxygen production from lunar regolith. In this system solar radiation is collected by the concentrator array which transfers the concentrated solar radiation to the optical waveguide (OW) transmission line made of low loss optical fibers. The OW transmission line directs the solar radiation to the thermal receiver for thermochemical processing of in-situ resources or for manufacturing of materials and components on the planetary surface. Key features of the proposed system are: 1. Highly concentrated solar radiation (10^3 ~ 10^4 suns) can be transmitted via the flexible OW transmission line directly to the thermal receiver for thermochemical or manufacturing; 2. Power scale-up of the system can be achieved by incremental increase of the number of concentrator units; 3. The system can be autonomous, stationary or mobile, and easily transported and deployed on the lunar surface; and 4. The system can be applied to a variety of ISRU processes.