PRE2024 3 Group13

Ideas

1. we can also use swarm behavior of ants, krill, termite, locusts, bees.
2. maybe we can distinguish between a few mother robots that controls the other robots, like in a ant nest: Queen, worker, male (to fertilize the queen), Warriors .etc

Users: Space Agencies (ESA, NASA, etc.)

Group members

Name	Student ID	Email address
Bas Coppus	1706160	b.coppus@student.tue.nl
Mikolaj Pujanek	1732595	m.p.pujanek@student.tue.nl
Maksim Fisekovic	1889524	m.fisekovic@student.tue.nl
Ingmar Verweij	1629433	i.verweij@student.tue.nl
Thomas Passon	1890190	t.passon@student.tue.nl

Introduction

Type an introduction

Who does what

Bas: transporting Helium back to Earth

Mikolaj: bringing Helium to refinery/mass driver

Maksim: control of the swarm

Ingmar: locating Helium

Thomas: mining Helium

Literature review

Massdrivers

The paper: "Lunar based massdriver applications" describes that there are two types of mass drivers a Gauss or a coilgun and a Lorentz Rail Accelerator (LRA). Due to the simplistic design of the components and the developed railgun technology, the work in this paper will be considered with the LRA.

The LRA needs to be powered and the best way to do do this is by making PV-panels out of the minerals of the moon, which has an efficiency of 16%. These solar-panels do not track the sun, because they are robust and low in maintenance. This means that only 40% of the lunar revolution (27.3 Earth days) the massdriver can not operate.

A small vehicle is used to load the massdriver. This reduces the retention time within the first acceleration modules. A vehicle with a load is sliding down a ramp in which the barrel of the LRA is at equal height of the payload such that the vehicle and load can detach with each other. In this case a velocity of 1 m/s is used. This way of loading or injecting is needed, otherwise the heat load and friction would damage the modules of the payload. To monitor the launch, a control center is needed with a sufficient height to oversee the launching and if needed breakoff the launch. This breakoff can be done by extending the barrel and do the reverse of the injection process.

The best way to build the massdriver is to use the minerals of the moon. The rails will be made by aluminum due to the higher conductivity per kilogram ratio as copper for example. Oxygen is a by product from a lot of refining metals.

Mikolaj:

Maksim:

Ingmar: [1] http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2175.pdf [2] https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.icarus.2009.12.032 [3] https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-010-4198-9 [4] https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-011-4561-0 [5] https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.2000.6545 [6] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2009.11.034 [7] https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.2000.6545

Summary: From [1] it was found that He-3 is implanted into the lunar surface by the solar wind. The problem is not the implantation, however, but the retention of the He-3 within the lunar surface. The retention of He-3 depends on the grain size of the lunar regolith [1] (<50 micron seems to hold the most helium-3), the electroconductivity of the lunar regolith (TiO2 was mentioned)[3] and it also seems to depend on the solar exposure [2], meaning less sunlight is better able to retain the He-3. This would mean that craters at the lunar poles seem to be the best option [2]. The Chang-E-1 mission was able to measure the thickness of the regolith layer by measuring the thermal radiation of the lunar regolith [4][5][6] (I don't fully understand this yet). Another method was found in [7] by using radar waves (at 70cm) and measuring the thickness by using scattering from the underlying substrate.

Thomas:

Individual effort

Week 1

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus	4h	Making small basic sections in the wiki page and trying to understand how to edit the page works (1h). Finding a subject to research and how to implement this research into a program, prototype or a literature research and finding some papers (2h) . Meeting at 12-02-2025 (1h), Summarizing paper [1]
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij		Find a research subject (1h), Wednesday meeting (1hr), Literature review (4hrs)
Thomas Passon

Week 2

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon

Week 3

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon

Week 4

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon

Week 5

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon

Week 6

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon

Week 7

Name	Total time	Progress and time
Bas Coppus
Mikolaj Pujanek
Maksim Fisekovic
Ingmar Verweij
Thomas Passon