NASA\u2019s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project\u00a0completed\u00a0an important step\u00a0toward using local resources to support human exploration\u00a0on the Moon.\u00a0The\u00a0CaRD\u00a0team\u00a0performed\u00a0integrated prototype testing that used concentrated solar energy to extract oxygen from simulated lunar soil, while confirming the production of carbon monoxide through a solar-driven\u00a0chemical\u00a0reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If deployed on the Moon, this technology could enable the production of propellant using only lunar materials and sunlight, significantly reducing the cost and complexity of sustaining a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. The same downstream systems used to convert carbon monoxide into oxygen can also be adapted to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and methane on Mars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The integrated prototype brought together a carbothermal oxygen production reactor developed by Sierra Space, a solar concentrator designed by NASA\u2019s\u00a0Glenn Research Center\u00a0in Cleveland, precision mirrors produced by Composite Mirror Applications, and avionics, software, and gas analysis systems from NASA\u2019s\u00a0Kennedy Space Center\u00a0in\u00a0Florida. NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston led project management, systems engineering, testing, and development of key hardware and ground support systems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project\u00a0completed\u00a0an important step\u00a0toward using local resources to support human exploration\u00a0on the Moon.\u00a0The\u00a0CaRD\u00a0team\u00a0performed\u00a0integrated prototype…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,1534,66,306],"class_list":{"0":"post-473958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-johnson-space-center","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}