Speakers
Description
The next decades will see a growing presence on the Lunar surface. Not only will robotic systems continue to explore the Moon , but they will also assist in establishing a permanent human presence. Various stationary and mobile assets will be needed to enable such a growth in Lunar exploration. Different systems have emerged during the last years that include instruments, vehicles, and habitats. Due to the extreme thermal environment on the Lunar surface, long-term survival constitutes the most important challenge during the designing of these systems as depicted by NASA in their shortfall ranking list .
Lunar Outpost EU (LOEU) is developing LUX-Thermal, an autonomous, self-contained energy storage and generation technology that provides thermal and electrical energy on demand. Its operation is based on the harnessing and storage of heat from multiple inputs during the day. During the Lunar night, it would provide power to customers in proximity, thus enabling their survival without additional internal subsystems.
The survival of LUX-Thermal itself is enabled by a combination of multiple novel technologies, which have been developed by LOEU as part of the LuxIMPULSE contract with the Luxembourg Space Agency:
- The thermal cover system has been designed to adapt LUX-Thermal to the changing external thermal environment of the lunar day-night-cycle. The system deploys MLI on external surfaces that would form heat leakages during the lunar night. Additionally, the system protects sensitive surfaces from lunar dust, when they are not operating.
- The thermal capacitor (TCAP) is a phase change material container with a defined melting point. The system stores heat for short periods, while maintaining a stable temperature range.
- The active thermal switch (ATS) is a compact device which actively changes the thermal conductance on-demand between a heat source and sink from a low to a high value and vice-versa.
