Evidence of Learning #1

Name: Ritika Bais

Subject: Aerospace Engineering

Source:

Paz, Aaron. An ISRU Propellant Production System to Fully Fuel a Mars Ascent Vehicle. NASA,
13 Jan. 2017, mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#starred/160127d7b9b0f2b0?projector=1.

Date: January 5, 2017

Analysis:

Recently I have discovered that the path I want to pursue in the future with a degree
Aerospace Engineering is In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). I had always know that I would
pursue a career in the space industry, but I was unsure what specific field I belonged in:
mechanics, robotics, programming, pyrotechnics, and many more exist for me to choose from.
Part of the reason for this was simply due to my non-exposure to space companies like NASA
and SpaceX. But, with the release of the movie The Martian in 2016, I found In-Situ Resource
Utilization and started looking more into that specific field of aerospace engineering. Through a
recent communication with an ISRU engineer at NASA, I was able to partly read and analyze
some of his current work in an official report, granting me an amazing opportunity to delve even
further into ISRU and truly know if it is the topic for me.

The report covers a test and analysis Mr. Paz (the engineer), and his team devised to see
how much of a benefit it will be to use ISRU when attempting a flight back from Mars. The basis
of this thinking comes from the fact that the Mars atmosphere is made of useful compounds like
CO2 that would enable us to produce liquid methane, liquid oxygen, water, and other valuable
resources with the right equipment. A case study was formed to show how truly valuable a
machine like this would be for a return trip from Mars using models and analytics. The results
were astounding showing that even with the smallest regolith, an ISRU system would only weigh
1.7 mT (metric tons) to 30 mT of propellant we would need without ISRU. Not only does this
guarantee jobs for this field in the future of space exploration, but it also has great implications
for the environment, the cost of a trip, and technology in general. In the following paragraph, I
will outline only the beginning knowledge that led to the conclusion Mr. Paz and his team
arrived at.

Firstly, we have always known that the Mars atmosphere, rich with CO2, will be able to
provide us with oxygen and water for life-supporting systems and agriculture. But the ability and
idea to produce liquid methane and oxygen to fully fuel a Mars ascent vehicle is recent with
more knowledge of Mars’s geography and our own technological capabilities. This study was
confirmed after we discovered more deep water sources on Mars and confirmed a stable drilling
process to reach into a Mars regolith. The end goal of the study was to develop models to
estimate mass and power needs for an end-to-end human-scale ISRU production system.
Therefore, models were built for oxygen and methane incorporating technologies already in use
by NASA (Solid Oxide Electrolysis, Sabatier reactor) and off-the shelf ones as well to guarantee
the most efficient system. A model like this is truly what ISRU in terms of engineering is all
about: using machines to extract and create resources. After reading only what the starting steps
to this incredible experiment were, I am already deeply curious to understand how Mr. Paz and
his team were able to build and test their models.

There is much more available to read about this test in particular and ISRU, but the
implications with only the knowledge above are astounding. A Mars trip is currently predicted to
take place in 5-10 years, and as the years increase, so will our technological abilities and our
efficiency at ISRU. In-Situ Resource Utilization is a new field in NASA and has great potential
to evolve space exploration in the near future. After reading many articles on this topic and
especially the lab report provided to me by Mr. Paz, I am certain of my interest in ISRU and will
focus on this topic in my research in the future.