Micro Space Foundry for On-Orbit Recycling and Metal Materials Production

CisLunar Industries is developing an innovative engineering solution to enable the recycling of spent upper stages, satellites, and space debris, thereby transforming otherwise dangerous material into feedstock for on-orbit manufacturing.Our recycling technology will take scavenged space debris and reprocess it into standardized metal feedstock in the form of rod, wire filament, and other useful geometries. These will be used in a variety of applications, including a metal propellant and for on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM).In the Phase I SBIR project we successfully demonstrated the feasibility of on-orbit recycling using an electromagnetic induction furnace in vacuum to produce useful materials from simulated cut debris. Our partner Nanoracks provided data for debris location, composition, and methods for capture and transformation of space debris into feedstock. The results of multiple tests, both in and out of vacuum, show that ribbon and strip geometries offer numerous processing advantages over chips. The reach goal of producing metal propellant rods and testing the thrust on a Neumann Space pulsed plasma thruster was accomplished.Hosted by the Colorado School of Mines, the CisLunar technology for propellant rod production from recycled space debris was demonstrated live with Astroscale, Nanoracks, and Neumann Space present to show how space debris can be captured, cut, recycled, and used as a spacecraft propellant.Built upon the successful Phase I CisLunar technology, Phase II will:nbsp;Extend hardware to accommodate varied geometries and compositions of input materials, and form a standardized output product;nbsp;Develop a reconfigurable Micro Space Foundry (MSF) testbed for near-term demonstration on-orbit (e.g. ISS);nbsp;Mature the stated technology to TRL 5 through demonstration in relevant environments, including microgravity by means of a parabolic flight.nbsp;