Electromagnetic Regolith Excavator

Abstract

Decades of research and development have been invested in various forms of railguns, coilguns and mass drivers. See http://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/75SummerStudy/Table_of Contents1.html

Research at the Space Studies Institute in the 1980s refined the mass driver concept. See http://ssi.org/introduction-to-research/research-report/# mass-driver-iii

The innovation of the Electromagnetic Regolith Excavator is to eliminate the use of a bucket or other container that is accelerated by the magnetic fields. Instead, magnetic particles in the regolith itself (nickel-iron grains and/or magnetite) are put into motion and they carry along with them a to-be-determined fraction (perhaps all) of the co-resident non-magnetic regolith particles.

The Electromagnetic Regolith Excavator applies only attractive forces: no anchoring is required. This enables robotic and crewed spacecraft to safely collect surface material from asteroid targets that may be tumbling. Because no hard connection is required, no strong hazardous forces can be imparted to the collection apparatus aboard the spacecraft.

Description

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION[0001]The Electromagnetic Regolith Excavator (ERE) is a proposed method of excavation (including drilling) that uses traveling waves of magnetism to draw magnetic materials into and through a tube and then to direct their movement into a collection bag. It takes advantage of the magnetic nature of most chondrite asteroids (whether in nickel-iron grains or in ferromagnetic minerals such as magnetite) to rapidly move large volumes of material. Non-magnetic materials are carried along with the magnetic portion, thanks to collisions, friction, inertia, and the careful timing of magnetic pulses.[0002]The ERE behaves much like a vacuum cleaner: the open end attracts loose material, which then enters a duct and is moved along it by directional forces until it is deposited into a receptacle. A vacuum cleaner uses air pressure to draw in and move material, while the ERE uses magnetic attraction to draw in and direct the material. A vacuum cleaner depends upon friction...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0001]The Electromagnetic Regolith Excavator (ERE) is a proposed method of excavation (including drilling) that uses traveling waves of magnetism to draw magnetic materials into and through a tube and then to direct their movement into a collection bag. It takes advantage of the magnetic nature of most chondrite asteroids (whether in nickel-iron grains or in ferromagnetic minerals such as magnetite) to rapidly move large volumes of material. Non-magnetic materials are carried along with the magnetic portion, thanks to collisions, friction, inertia, and the careful timing of magnetic pulses.

Problems solved by technology

However, the microgravity environment results in several challenges for asteroid exploitation, including the difficulty of processes—such as digging—that we take for granted on the Earth's surface.

Obvious solutions—attaching the spacecraft in some way to the asteroid—are cumbersome if the spacecraft must be able to traverse the asteroid's surface gathering material.

Images