The Production of Fuel and Life Support Consumables through Martian in-Situ Resource Utilization Techniques

Project Abstract: Our team has chosen an In-Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU, plant design.  ISRU essentially means generating mission consumables from the resources located naturally on the planet.  In the case of Mars ISRU this typically involves processing the regolith (top soil) and atmosphere to create combustible fuels that can be used in rockets, as well as water to drink and oxygen to be used in life support systems.  Specifically, the fuel would be methane, which can be combusted in the thin Martian atmosphere with excess O₂.  Our team will be analyzing the use of dis-similar main processes to increase reliability.  The three reactions taking place are water electrolysis, a Sabatier reaction, and the electrocatalytic reduction of CO₂.  The implications of this system are dramatic cost reductions from shipping all consumables from Earth, an increase in mission reliability and mission safety.  ISRU technology enables long term habitation on distant planets.  The technology developed also has energy sector implications.

Proposed Deliverables:

1. Aspen simulation of chemical Plant:

This model requires the team to design separation processes such as H2/O2 separation, water purification, and carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere.  Our team will also have to design reactors that will yield the correct amount of product, methane for example.  Thermodynamic calculations need to be performed in order to determine the specific separation/processing equipment that is needed to generate a pure/workable product.  

1. Process Control Design:

Along with the working simulation of chemistry of the plant, a control scheme will need to be designed.  The job of a control system is to ensure that the plant is producing what is intended, to indicate any problems within the plant, and to mitigate the risks associated with various processes. One example includes designing feedback and feed-forward loops around pieces of equipment such as the Mars regolith processing unit.  This ensures that the correct temperatures are maintained in the system for the resources within the soil to be pulled off and sent downstream.

3. Costing Analysis and Trade Studies:  

Another project requirement is to calculate the costs of individual parts of the plant, project the total costs associated with build the entire plant, and estimate the time till return on investment. Since this design is unique, the economic analysis will have to involve comparisons of the costs of previously constructed ISRU type systems, mission analyses, exploration architectures.  The benefits will have to be illustrated in terms of system redundancy and reliability. Come up with one specific case to illustrate our point. I.E. how much would it cost to ship everything for the Mars 5 Architecture from Earth and compare it to the cost of just shipping the mass of the plant that would create those consumables.

4. Benchtop Prototyping and Testing:  

The plant design team is currently in the process of writing proposals for the funding of several benchtop or small scale experiments that take a certain process from the plant and scale it down.  Currently, we are exploring designs for a water electrolysis demonstration and a membrane water vapor polisher.  Model Validation:  Since the entire plant is modeled using software, the data collected from the benchtop testing will be used to validate the results, increasing the integrity of the design.