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NORCAT has been developing
space mining equipment since
1999, with the primary focus
on a drilling unit for
subsurface exploration.
The need for mining activity
on other planets in support
of both robotic and human
activity is paramount. For
example, in order to ensure
a human mission can survive
on the moon for more than 3
days (per Apollo program),
it will be necessary to
produce oxygen and water
from the resources that are
located at the moon.
This is
called In Situ Resource
Utilization.
The only resource known to
be available is the lunar
soil. There is some
speculation that there may
be water ice in permanently
shadowed craters. In any
case, the use of these
resources for life support
will require the excavation
of the soil and processing
to refine the materials out
of the raw ore. It is, in
reality, a mining process. |
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The Northern Centre for Advanced
Technology (NORCAT), in partnership
with Electric Vehicle Controllers
Ltd. (EVC), and funded through
various Canadian Space Agency
projects, has developed a sample
capture device (SCaD) and auger
unit. When coupled to an all
electric drill, also developed in
house, the entire assembly is
capable of acquiring subsurface
samples without the use of
down-the-hole electric components.
NORCAT continues to work with both
the Canadian Space Agency and
NASA
to develop planetary excavation
equipment.
Along with the work in mining
solutions, a number of earlier
projects in the space exploration
area form the foundation upon which
continuing work of that nature
rests. Some of these are described
below. |
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Additional drill bits have been
developed and patented with space
exploration in mind. The patented
TRL4 bit was developed for Mars to
drill in unconsolidated and
consolidated material, especially
sedimentary rock. It has a narrow kerf.
NORCAT worked with
Dimatec to
develop the drill bit and
they have since marketed the
resulting design to the
petroleum industry for side
wall drilling.
Early auger development determined the best flight pitch suited to remove material generated by the drill bit (cuttings) from the drill hole, and confirmed a three start auger to be superior to a single start auger. |
The MM Class Rover Drill was an
in-house project undertaken to
develop a very small coring drill
that could generate a core as small
as 5 mm. The project was an exercise
in scalability and proved that a
valid hard rock dry drill could be
developed that massed under 5 kg,
drew less than 75 Watts of power and
was capable of drilling basalt to
develop a sample core. This project
also included the development of
additional drill bits which have
also been patented.
The Mars Pre-phase A project
included investigation into the
geometries of bits in relation to
downward force required to drill a
hole, and comparison of surface set
diamonds versus polycrystalline. The
resulting patented bit was chosen
for its best overall performance in
sandstone, dolomite, and andesite.
Bit design was
further advanced
with the turbine bit
in which the amount
of downward force
was distributed
evenly over all
cutting diamonds,
and flights were
timed to the auger
to facilitate flow
of cuttings up the
auger.
A specially modified
cryo temper unit, on
loan from the
Canadian Space
Agency, has allowed
NORCAT to perform
some unique testing
of down the hole
equipment at lunar
and Mars
temperatures.
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Autonomy is a critical element for
planetary exploration equipment.
Machinery must be able to function
with little or no operator
interference in many situations,
particularly on unmanned missions.
NORCAT has been working closely with
Xiphos Technologies Inc. in
development of their Q-cards, small
controllers that have many
applications and are of interest to
NORCAT for use in exploration
equipment.
In the Q-Card Flight
Readiness project, one of
the goals was to integrate a
modified Q-5 into an
existing drill platform and
then test its ability to
control low level drill
functions. The result was a
reduction in control power
requirements and a 75%
reduction in controller size
and mass. |
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NORCAT, in partnership with
Electric
Vehicle Controllers Ltd. (EVC)
completed an STDP (CSA’s Space
Technology Development Program)
project during which a Developer’s
Toolkit was created for the Q-card
from Xiphos Technologies Inc.
(link).
To effectively utilize the Q-card,
it is necessary to use application
design tools that operate on a level
above the explicit coding. The
Developer’s Toolkit allows users to
actively and dynamically program and
implement the Q-card controller. |
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NORCAT / EVC has been working with
NASA on the RESOLVE project since
2004 and continues to do so.
The
RESOLVE project (Regolith and
Environment Science and Oxygen and
Lunar Volatile Extraction) is an
experiment package designed to
obtain ‘ground truth’ data to
confirm the presence of hydrogen,
potentially in the form of water ice,
on the moon, as indicated by the
Clementine and Lunar Prospector
missions.
NORCAT’s role is to
develop an Excavation and Bulk
Regolith Characterization (EBRC)
Module – essentially a drill with
sample capture and a particle size
reduction unit. The drill has
recently been integrated with a
lunar rover built by
Carnegie Mellon
University’s Robotics group
to demonstrate
integrated mobility and
autonomous drilling. |
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In addition to drills,
NORCAT/EVC has
developed excavation
equipment. The Bucket Wheel
Excavator was a prototype
developed at Colorado School
of Mines to demonstrate a
method of continuous mining
excavation.
NORCAT’s role
was to verify the CSM design
and field test the
bucketwheel to validate
forces generated and power
consumption predictions.
NORCAT
is also currently involved
in helping the
University of
Toronto Institute
for Aerospace Studies
(UTIAS)
to develop a multi-agent
teaming concept. A fleet of
small autonomous rovers work
together to accomplish a
task, such as excavating a
hole using artificial neural
tissue – controllers which
can ‘learn’ and adapt. |
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