NASA plans to excavate the lunar soil in 2032 – 06/29/2023 – Science

NASA is looking to develop resources on the moon that initially include oxygen and water, and could eventually expand to iron and rare earths, and has already taken steps to excavate the lunar soil by 2032, a scientist said on Wednesday.

The US space agency plans to return Americans to the Moon as part of its Artemis mission, including the first woman and first black man by 2025, and learn from the mission to facilitate a trip to Mars.

A key part of the mission is to promote commercial opportunities in space. The agency seeks to quantify potential resources, including energy, water and lunar soil, as a goal to attract commercial investment, said Gerald Sanders, a rocket scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for 35 years.

Developing access to resources on the Moon will be critical to cutting costs and developing a circular economy, Sanders said.

“We’re trying to invest in the exploration phase, understand the resources … to (decrease) the risk so that outside investment makes sense and can lead to development and production,” he told a mining conference in Brisbane.

“We are literally just scratching the surface,” he declared. NASA will send a test drilling rig to the moon later this month and plans a full-scale excavation of lunar soil, or regolith, and a pilot processing plant in 2032.

The first customers are expected to be commercial rocket companies that can use the Moon’s resources as fuel or oxygen.

The Australian Space Agency is involved in the development of a semi-autonomous rover that will collect regolith samples on a NASA mission as early as 2026, said Samuel Webster, the agency’s assistant director.