Description: The Carbothermal Oxygen Production Reactor (COPR) builds on previous efforts to demonstrate extraction of oxygen from lunar regolith simulant in a relavent environment using the carbothermal reduction process. In this process, carbon reacts with silacate minerals in molten regolith and removes oxygen in the form of carbon monoxide. The prototype reactor has been tested in a dirty thermal vacuum chamber in order to achieve TRL 6 for a lunar environment. When combined with a solar concentrator and gas analysis system (not part of the scope of this effort) this design can be proposed as a flight demonstration that can address strategic knowlege gaps by collecting information on the yield and byproducts of a carbothermal reduction process using actual lunar regolith in a relavent location on the lunar surface. There are at least 20 different methods to extract oxygen from lunar regolith. Many O2FR technologies have been demonstrated in laboratory settings and field demonstrations, but none have been demonstrated in a relevantlunarenvironment until now. One of the most difficult aspects of any O2FR process is demonstrating the ability to autonomously move regolith in and out of a reactor over multiple cycles. Only hydrogen reduction and carbothermal reduction have demonstrated this capability, but hydrogen reduction is dependent on the presence of iron oxides that are in low abundance at the lunar poles. Of the many O2FR methods investigated to date, carbothermal reduction has the best chance of achieving a successful flight demonstration that can eventually be scaled up and implemented over long periods of time on the lunar surface.

Benefits: The near term benefit of the design that is being developed through this project is that it can be proposed as a flight demonstration that will address strategic knowledge gaps (SKGs). Once the SKGs are addressed, this technology can be scaled up to make useful amounts of oxygen on the lunar surface. This technology has the potential to produce several times its own weight in oxygen per year. Any amount of oxygen that can be produced from the lunar surface will reduce the cost of landing oxygen propellant, which will be a signifant mass/cost of any crewed lunar mission. Further, this process has benefits over alternative Oxygen from Regolith (O2FR) processes because it involves technologies that can be applied to Mars and Environmental Control Life Support Systems (ECLSS), such as the production of methane from CO/CO2 and hydrogen, as well as water electrolysis. This technology also has the potential benefit of making a more effective use of hydrogen derived from lunar water. If lunar water is fed into a full-scale carbothermal reduction plant, it can be combined with carbon to produce methane, a fuel that requires much less energy to liquefy than hydrogen.