Investigating Sintering of Icy Regolith Simulants for Lunar Exploration

Institut

Professur für Lunare und Planetare Explorationstechnologien

Typ

Semesterarbeit / Masterarbeit /

Inhalt

experimentell / konstruktiv /  

Beschreibung

The Professorship of Lunar and Planetary Exploration develops instruments for future lunar missions and performs research in fundamental planetary science. Of particular interest is the extraction of water at the Moon’s south pole, where icy regolith deposits hold the potential to support future human exploration. In preparation of these missions, high-quality icy regolith simulants are crucial for conducting lab experiments that replicate lunar conditions. 

Our research group is actively investigating various methods for preparing icy regolith simulants to enhance the representativity of experimental investigations. This proposed thesis focuses on thermal solid-state sintering, which is a significant unknown in the preparation process. A certain level of sintering is advantageous, but it can also become an issue when storing icy regolith mixtures for longer durations between the production and the experiment. The goal of this thesis is to characterize this process and propose improvements to production and storage conditions. 

 

Tasks: 

• Literature research into ice sintering/storability 

• Determination of required storage conditions 

• Design and building of an experimental setup for analysis of sintering state 

• Testing and analysis of stored ice samples 

• Optional: Mixing, testing and analysis of ice-regolith samples 

Voraussetzungen

Requirements: 

• Interest in lunar exploration 

• Basic knowledge of heat transfer 

• Knowledge of CAD (Solidworks or NX) 

• Ideally, previous experience with experimental lab work 

• Ideally, experience with lunar regolith simulant 

• Ideally, knowledge of data analysis (e.g. Python, MATLAB) 

Möglicher Beginn

sofort

Kontakt

Noria Brecher
Raum: 9377.02.211
Tel.: 08928955685
j.n.brechertum.de

Ausschreibung