Exploration of the Moon will require maximum use of its resources, such as lunar “soil” – regolith. Researchers from the Wroclaw University of Technology, in cooperation with Four Point, a Wrocław-based company, have developed a concept for a device for its sieving/sorting, which will make possible to use the finest grains to produce regolith bricks. The solution has been licensed by the US company Astroport Space Technologies.
The concept for the device originated as one of the technologies in a major project to prepare a landing site for launches and landings on the Moon. It was commissioned by NASA and the task was undertaken by the US company Astroport Space Technologies.
The study is to include a detailed description of the permanent infrastructure necessary for continuous operations on the surface of the Silver Globe – including transportation, resource extraction and potential industrial activity.
The idea is to make maximum use of what is available locally, so lunar regolith is envisioned as a building material. Astroport Space Technologies has already developed technology called Lunatron Bricklayer for sintering small particles of this rock and shaping them into slabs/bricks for building – in this case – a lunar landing site. However, it will be necessary to properly prepare the material for the entire process – that is, to separate the fine grains of lunar rock from the larger stones.
The joint invention of the team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Four Point company is already protected by a patent application (as “Centrifugal separator impeller and method of sieving bulk materials in a centrifugal separator”). Astropost Space Technologies has purchased a license to use it and is currently planning the first tests on simple models of the device.
