EcoMine™ - Bioregenerative Mineral Mining from Lunar Regolith

NASA’s plans to establish a sustained Lunar presence for scientific research, Mars mission preparation, and a thriving commercial Lunar economy will require significant surface infrastructure. The use of in situ resources enables a more economical and sustainable approach to constructing this infrastructure, while providing an alternative source of rare Earth minerals for terrestrial use. Lunar regolith contains an abundance of Si and Al in anorthite, Fe and Ti in ilmenite, magnesium, and other REEs in mare regolith, that can be used for in-situ construction. However, traditional Earth mining processes are not economically feasible on the moon, due to high energy demands, labor needs, high mass transport costs for consumable reagents, lower ore quality, and potential environmental and safety impacts. NASA seeks space mining technologies to extract metals and feedstocks from Lunar regolith that are 1) autonomous, 2) robust to the Lunar surface environment 3) reduce the mass of raw material (ore) transported from the mine to the processor; 4) are economically feasible; and 5) efficiently regenerate and/or recycle reagents used. The proposed EcoMine™ is a bioregenerative mining facility for use on the Lunar surface. The goals of this project are to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of the EcoMine™ concept to autonomously, safely, and efficiently extract minerals from Lunar regolith and prepare for future technology development. Phase I objectives are to: 1) Investigate the EcoMine™ process safety and product quality; 2) Investigate the reliability of the EcoMine™ operation on the moon; 3) Assess the economic feasibility of the EcoMine architecture compared with chemical mining practices; and 4) Identify key architecture elements and process parameters for future verification & validation.