Moon-To-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT)

The MMPACT project will focus on the utilization of lunar in-situ materials for the manufacturing construction of large-scale infrastructure elements like habitats, berms, landing pads, blast shields, walkways, floors, storage facilities, and roads using one or both of two techniques. NASA/MSFC intends to issue a sole source contract to Radiance Technologies. This effort includes the Literature Review, Test Bed Development, Process Development, Regolith Material Studies, Time Domain Testbed Development, Time Domain Regolith Material Studies, Near Field Coupling Antenna, Microwave Field Mapping, Electronic Susceptibility Assessment, and RF Hardening Development: Conduct a thorough literature review of previous microwave regolith studies, previous and existing regolith sintering testbeds, and material analysis of both regolith and regolith simulants. This study will form the basis for testbed development and establish a clear research path. Develop a test bed that allows for the measurement of material properties related to microwave illumination, thermal absorption, temperature measurement and other factors related to the sintering of bulk particulate. This testbed will function at roughing vacuum and accommodate the temperatures and RF radiation necessary to complete the initial studies. Research and develop the standards for a process which will allow for the evaluation of bulk materials with respect to RF absorption, heat transfer, maintenance of vacuum pressures, and posttest processing of initial materials. The regolith studies will begin after the test bed is complete and regolith materials are selected. Due to the low availability and high cost of the lunar simulant initial material studies will use nondestructive test methods to determine all possible data prior to microwave illumination. The development of the time domain testbed will take into account factors including but not limited to: Testbed size which is a product of with microwave wavelength, thermal conductivity and capacity of bulk material Sample Size and customer desired output Sample material properties such as out gassing, maximum temperature Incorporation of signal analysis equipment into testing suite This task will apply the initial study results to a regolith simulant and research the optimum microwave absorption frequencies for high energy transfer and how these characteristics change. This task will model and design an antenna with a focus on uniform near field energy distribution. Additionally this task will review materials necessary for operation of this antenna in environments ranging from cryogenic to 1,100C. The study the surrounding fields related to illumination of RF radiation into bulk dry earth material with high microwave absorptive characteristics. A map of RF field levels with respect to distance and horn position will be generated Conduce susceptibility assessments of NASA systems related to this effort of suitable prototypes as directed by NASA. These assessments will be performed with frequencies and field levels appropriate based on results of the microwave field map study. If the results of the first two task items reveal compatibility issues, the contractor will develop hardening measure to mitigate fratricide.