The moon is sexy again. Multiple national agencies and private firms are planning missions. Both NASA and ESA are planning lunar-outposts or space-gateways, with support by major industry players such as Airbus, Boeing and Lockheed. The time frame for many of these plans is within the next decade. These plans will soon open doors for resources sourced from the moon or asteroids to be delivered in earth or lunar orbit or to the Martian surface.
With its immense experience in terrestrial resource infrastructure and extraction, Australia is well placed to take a leading role in space resource extraction and processing as well as become a leader in advanced in-space manufacturing, such as additive manufacturing or large-scale 3D printing.
ACSER and the UNSW School of of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering jointly host a bi-annual forum to discuss issues surrounding Space Resource Utilisation (SRU). In the years since this event was first realised (2013), the research and industrial backdrop has changed dramatically. Click below to find out more about the program or proceedings from our past forums:
Here at UNSW Sydney we have been developing our capabilities in mission development and SRU research in conjunction with NASA and our industrial partners, enabling us to make substantial contributions to the burgeoning space economy that is now only a few years away. Those efforts are currently focussed in the Wilde project.
PhD topics in this field are available with ACSER.
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Funded by NASA’s Economic Research for Space Development, Emerging Space Office.
Partners: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The project aimed to develop an integrated set of riskbased financial and technical models to evaluate multiple Off-Earth Mining scenarios. This quantitative, scenariobased tool helps identify combinations of market variables, technical parameters, and policy levers that will enable the expansion of the global economy into the solar system and return economic benefits. As part of the project four models were developed: Mars Colony Architectural Model, Extraction Process Model, Mars Infrastructure and Integrated Logistical Support Model and Economics Integration Model. UNSW Australia’s team was led by A/Prof Saydam, with Prof Dempster, Dr Coulton and Mr Tapia Cortez. The group involved developing multiple optimised mining systems to extract water from the Mars surface.
We are currently launching a new project in this area, see Mining water on the moon: the Wilde* Project for more info.
The 2019 Off Earth Mining Forum ran in November. See the event website for more info.
A/Prof Serkan Saydam spent a significant proportion of his sabbatical (Jun-Dec 2015) visiting potential off-earth mining (OEM) collaborators and developing proposals for ongoing research. This is in addition to the work on the project with NASA’s JPL, and the two events; the Future Mining Conference and the Off-Earth Mining Forum.
As part of his travels, Serkan visited Caltech, MIT, Virginia Tech, Univ. Central Florida, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA), Kennedy Space Centre (FL), and Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DC). He gave invited talks in the US on “An Integrated Economics Model for ISRU in Support of a Mars Colony” to NASA SSERVI (Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute) CLASS (Centre for Lunar and Asteroid Sciences), Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Washington DC, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, MA, Swamp Works, Kennedy Space Centre, NASA, Orlando, FL. He initiated MOUs with JPL/Caltech, MIT, and UTEP.
He also produced the application “Comprehensive Modelling for Off-Earth Mining Optimization and Resource
Processing” under the STTR scheme, i.e. a Government research grant (CAT 3) with Easi, VTech and NASA KSC
($174,975).