TUBS-M and TUBS-T based modular Regolith Simulant System for the support of lunar ISRU activities

Abstract

Rising international interest in scientific and commercial Moon exploration programs require cost-efficient logistical solutions regarding raw- and construction materials for a permanent residence on our Earth’s satellite. Lunar regolith soil is the most abundant resource; its technical exploitation would comprise a major leap forward towards the construction of infrastructure on the Moon. Current efforts dedicated to the technological exploitation of lunar regolith require terrestrial analogue materials (simulants). Such simulants are indispensable for Earth-based development and testing of hardware later used on the lunar surface (e.g. rovers or scientific equipment) as well as technologies that will process regolith directly. However, available simulants are material-specific which limits their use to tests for site specific projects on the lunar surface. At TU Braunschweig, we are actually developing a regolith simulant system that allows the flexible adaptation of regolith properties to meet the technological testing requirements. That planned process for the production of customized simulants is presented in the paper. The TUBS-M and TUBS-T simulants are based on basaltic and anorthositic bedrock, respectively. These two basic simulant components, which match the two dominant lunar surface rock types, are now fully developed. Their characteristics in terms of mineralogy, chemical composition, and physical properties are presented in this paper. Currently, methods for the production of other important components of the regolith (glasses, agglutinates) are in development and additional minerals will be analyzed, which will enable the production of highly customized simulants for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) purposes beginning in 2020.