Design and analysis of sustainable lunar water resources extraction and utilization

The extraction and utilization of water ice resources in the lunar polar region is one of the important supporting technologies for the construction and sustainable operation of lunar bases. The development and utilization plan, implementation plan and development trend of water ice resources in the lunar polar region at home and abroad were investigated. Based on the selection of the work site in the permanently shaded regions of the lunar south pole, a system of sustainable lunar water resources extraction and utilization was proposed. The system is composed of three parts:mobile base vehicle, mobile in-situ drilling vehicle and mobile mirror set. It has the ability of flexible arrangement to continuously extract water ice resources in the shadow craters. The material flow and energy flow of the designed scheme were calculated and modeled, and the program analysis was carried out. The calculation results show that improving the solar energy transfer efficiency, photoelectric conversion efficiency, heating efficiency, and electrolysis efficiency, as well as improving the initial water ice content when it is lower than 5.0%, can significantly reduce the total energy consumption of the system task. Reducing the initial temperature of the icy lunar soil and the improvement of water purification efficiency have a negligible increase in the total energy consumption of the mission. The system design and analysis results can provide a reference for China's lunar base mission.