Technologies

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The Solar Concentrating Oxygen Reactor with Continuous Heating and Extrusion of Regolith (SCORCHER) concentrates sunlight to extract oxygen from regolith in a highly scalable industrial process. Outward has introduced unique methods for heating the regolith with concentrated solar energy and optimized the reaction for extracting and collecting its oxygen. The result is a fast, efficient, continuous process where oxygen is produced while yielding valuable byproducts for lunar construction, 3D printing, and thermal energy storage.

Outward has developed solar additive manufacturing processes that can build components for almost any structure, large or small, from lunar regolith without binders and using almost no electrical power. More than just melting regolith and pouring it into a mold, Outward’s additive technology optimizes the microstructure of solid regolith parts for increased strength and toughness. This results in engineered materials suitable for construction of critical infrastructure and the mass manufacture of hardware on the Moon.

The Lunar Articulating Mirror Array (LAMA) is a versatile solar concentrating heliostat able to produce fully variable solar concentrations of more than 1000 suns, project this highly focused spot of sunlight to any location within tens of meters of the device, and transmit lower concentrations of solar power at any distance. While developed to heat and melt regolith for the purpose of building landing pads and roadways, LAMA can also provide the high temperature thermal energy needed for lunar reactors while also being able to transmit sunlight over great distances to power rovers at the lunar south pole.

Outward has developed a system for the Feed and Removal of Regolith for Oxygen Extraction (FaRROE). This system enables continuous processing of lunar regolith for extracting oxygen and is suitable for several different processing techniques such as carbothermal reduction or molten regolith electrolysis. These capabilities are provided using low mass hardware to feed regolith into and out of a reactor while capturing liberated oxygen and enabling utilization of the waste material for casting and additive manufacturing.

Lunar regolith contains metals valuable to human habitation on the Moon including silicon, iron, magnesium, aluminum, and titanium. Outward has developed the Multi-stage Oxygen and Regolith Resource Extractor (MORRE) system to recover purified metals from regolith while making it easier to capture gaseous oxygen using lightweight and robust processing equipment. MORRE is designed to be integrated with multiple regolith resource extraction methods which utilize low reaction pressures such as Molten Regolith Electrolysis (MRE) and vapor phase pyrolysis.

Welding in space will be essential for constructing large structures such as towers on the Moon and infrastructure in orbit such as human habitats, telescopes, and solar arrays. Outward has developed the Solar On-Orbit Welder for Repair, Assembly, and Manufacturing (SO-WARM) system, which uses direct solar energy to produce non-porous, strong welds in Aluminum and Titanium plate up to 6mm thick with greater than 94% joint efficiency. SO-WARM can autonomously weld parts while maintaining submillimeter position control, and control weld temperatures within 1% of a target value up to 2600 C. In addition, SO-WARM can also be used as a cutting tool to disassemble satellites for safe deorbiting or recycling space junk.

Outward has developed a comprehensive suite of multi-physics numerical modeling tools for studying the complex behavior of lunar regolith. These cutting edge tools integrate Discrete Element Method, Finite Difference Method, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Pore Finite Volume methods within a unified and easy-to-use simulation framework with automated calibration to better assist the user. These methods have been applied to effectively model, analyze, and predict rover mobility hazards, rocket plume-regolith interactions, thermal management of rovers and buried habitats, heat transfer in vacuum, and vapor transport in icy regolith. Outward's modeling tools are applicable to any problem related to granular media where high fidelity results are needed.

Most lunar regolith simulants contain mineral mixtures similar to those found in Apollo lunar samples yet fail to capture the effects of the agglutinates found in real lunar regolith. These agglutinates are the highly irregularly shaped soil particles caused from repeated micrometeorite impacts. Agglutinates exhibit a higher glass content and their irregular shapes and low strengths impact the mechanical response of the soil. Outward has developed a high fidelity lunar agglutinate simulant to accurately capture these agglutinates to improve the accuracy of physical experiments using lunar regolith simulants.

Outward pursues dual-use technologies that can help revolutionize operations in space while leading to a more sustainable future on Earth. Renewable energy technologies developed by the company include solar powered refining of ores, hobbyist metal 3D printers, and long-duration thermal energy storage. These innovative, economical, and sustainable practices have been established through support from the National Science Foundation and NASA to achieve more efficient methods for concentrating solar in a wide range of applications.