Toward the utilisation of resources in space: knowledge gaps, open questions, and priorities
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Cilliers, Jan
Hadler, Kathryn
Rasera, Joshua
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
There are many open science questions in space resource utilisation due to the novelty and relative immaturity of the field. While many potential technologies have been proposed to produce usable resources in space, high confidence, large-scale design is limited by gaps in the knowledge of the local environmental conditions, geology, mineralogy, and regolith characteristics, as well as specific science questions intrinsic to each process. Further, the engineering constraints (e.g. energy, throughput, efficiency etc.) must be incorporated into the design. This work aims to summarise briefly recent activities in the field of space resource utilisation, as well as to identify key knowledge gaps, and to present open science questions. Finally, future exploration priorities to enable the use of space resources are highlighted.
Date Issued
2023-03-25
Date Acceptance
2023-03-13
Citation
npj Microgravity, 2023, 9 (1), pp.1-5
ISSN
2373-8065
Publisher
Nature Portfolio
Start Page
1
End Page
5
Journal / Book Title
npj Microgravity
Volume
9
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36966159
PII: 10.1038/s41526-023-00274-3
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
22
Date Publish Online
2023-03-25