Helping Heracles EL3 to Survive the Long, Cold, Dark Lunar Nights
PARIS (ESA PR) — ESA has kicked off an activity with Prototec – a NORCE company – and its partners Airbus and Air Liquide to develop alternative technologies for surviving the lunar night
When the European Large Logistic Lander (EL3) lands on the Moon, some of its cargo might require to survive the lunar night that lasts up to two weeks on Earth.
A sample return mission, the original mission for the Heracles scenario, would require camping out for at least two nights: a full day-night-day-night-day cycle, which takes 70 Earth days because of the approximately 28 days it take for the Moon to do a full rotation of its axis. The sample collection rover is planned to continue operating for a whole Earth year – 12 Moon day-night cycles – to prospect lunar resources and perform surface science.
Different technologies exist to address the problem and ESA is interested in considering all viable options, of which regenerative fuel cell technology is a very promising one. The fuel cells would convert water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity generated by solar arrays. When night falls, hydrogen and oxygen would be recombined to turn the reactants back into energy and water.
The Heracles EL3 programme is set on establishing a European lunar cargo landing capability based on Ariane 64. It will allow for two kinds of missions: scientifically-driven missions such as returning well-preserved and well-characterised samples from unexplored and inaccessible lunar regions, or delivering cargo to support human missions on NASA’s Artemis programme. The missions of Heracles EL3 should be ready by 2027 to fit properly into the plans of ESA’s international partners.
The Heracles EL3 system should be capable of delivering up to 1700 kg of cargo to the Moon as a cargo mission, or retrieve 15 kg of precious samples from the surface and bring them back to Earth for analysis by European scientists in its sample-return configuration.
Prototec and partners will perform a preliminary design and requirement specification for a fuel-cell based night survival system based on requirements formulated in the frame of the Heracles EL3 sample return scenario.
7 responses to “Helping Heracles EL3 to Survive the Long, Cold, Dark Lunar Nights”
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The answer is simple and has been known for 50 years, just add a small RTG.
It is sad how the anti-technology environmentalists have so terrified folks about nuclear energy. If it weren’t for environmentalists and their irrational fears we wouldn’t have the problem of climate change today as it would have been solved 40 years ago.
it would take a large RTG probably larger then has been flown on anything to date. I am “not opposed to that but you would need about 1500 to 2000 watts and thats not trivial
“weren’t for environmentalists and their irrational fears we wouldn’t
have the problem of climate change today as it would have been solved 40
years ago.”
a good chunk of my life is living within about 1000 feet or so of 8 nuclear reactors and of course unlike you I have gone to nuclear power school 🙂 (the USN’s at the university of Idaho in Moscow idaho) so know something about the subject
there is nothing unsafe about nuclear reactors as long as 1) they are built well, 2) they are run by very trained people 3) they are cared for with lots of dollars and 4) you have some idea of how to dispose of them and their waste
these are all problems which have federal government written all over them. the USN has never had a serious reactor problem, but its 21 year olds are well trained.
problem is where to put the waste
all that adds up to cost…unless you would love to adopt the Soviet/Musk theory of operations and safety. perhaps you will be one of the ones who dies because of it
fly navy
The problem of where to put the waste is also one the environmentalists have created with their irrational fears about nuclear energy. A nice deep mine works well for storing waste while waiting for science to develop the technology for transmutation of if.
such a facility exist but no one in NV wants to use it. you’re argument is not with the environment folks but its with the people of NV who are not sure they want it in their salt mines
having said all that …end of life cost of nuclear power in any form have to be added to total operational cost to come up with a true cost benefit relationship to other forms of power. likewise our involvement in the mideast for fossil fuel seems to be part of the price of “cheap gas”
andfor solar…of course you have to add the batteries and their disposal issues. (there are trade offs for every form of power)
it strikes me that right now the balance is in the favor of the renewables and tipping rapidly
we have on our farm a 80 kw (actually its a little more because I have some aux panels for my amateur radio setup) solar plant with now two Tesla battery packs. its a bit oversized for normal day to day “sun”…we get about 1600 or so hours of sun a year…we have only had this year a week (well 10 days) where we were grid negative, meaning we paid for power from the grid…the rest of the time we sold back substantial power to grid…and maintenance has been low
we have a couple of big generators on the farm…(and some small ones) but last summer we never had to use them…
this next year will probably see us invest in “greening” the 300 foot old long lines tower that we own. you get a good tax write off and the federal government (surprisingly in the age of trump) gives contractors a plus feed back if you do that (our main operator is the DoD and DOT) …
one thing that would be an interesting project on the Moon would be for the US and maybe Europe to develop a “power farm” where uncrewed and crewed vehicles could operate from. have to think about that one.
I think you are confusing Nevada with New Mexico. The WIPP was built and is operating in the salt beds near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Yucca Mountain was the facility proposed for Nevada near the Nuclear Test Site that the Democrats blocked. It is located in igneous rock, not salt beds. The two sites are around a 1,000 miles apart.
nope…sadly you are ill informed 🙂 be best
https://www.usatoday.com/st…
.as for Democrats LOL
“Nevada does not want to turn into a nuclear waste dump, and as long as
I’m in the U.S. Senate, I’ll make sure that Yucca Mountain remains
dead,” said Sen. Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican who is facing a tough
re-election challenge this fall.
Your missing the point. This article talks about a problem that has already been solved decades ago though the use of RTGs. The Curiosity rover’s RTG produces 2000 watts of thermal power. The problem that ESA has is that it does not possess the capability to produce the material for RTGs. This fact has left them unable to perform many classes of space missions like deep space missions and long duration surface missions. It seems silly that they are pursuing the method described in the article, which does not sound like it will work nearly as good as RTGs, instead of simply developing their own RTG production. The OP is blaming ESA inability to produce RTGs on “anti-technology environmentalists.” I do not think he is completely wrong in blaming them although anti-nuclear crusaders are not the only reason.