Propelling Interplanetary Spacecraft Utilizing Water-Steam. (arXiv:1902.03523v1 [astro-ph.IM])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Martinez_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">Jorge Martinez</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Thangavelautham_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">Jekan Thangavelautham</a>

Water has been identified as a critical resource both to sustain human-life
but also for use in propulsion, attitude-control, power, thermal and radiation
pro-tection systems. Water may be obtained off-world through In-Situ Resource
Utilization (ISRU) in the course of human or robotic space exploration that
replace materials that would otherwise be shipped from Earth. Water has been
highlighted by many in the space community as a credible solution for
affordable/sustainable exploration. Water can be extracted from the Moon,
C-class Near Earth Objects (NEOs), surface of Mars and Martian Moons Pho-bos
and Deimos and from the surface of icy, rugged terrains of Ocean Worlds.
However, use of water for propulsion faces some important techno-logical
barriers. A technique to use water as a propellant is to electrolyze it into
hydrogen and oxygen that is then pulse-detonated. High-efficiency elec-trolysis
requires use of platinum-catalyst based fuel cells. Even trace ele-ments of
sulfur and carbon monoxide found on planetary bodies can poison these cells
making them unusable. In this work, we develop steam-based propulsion that
avoids the technological barriers of electrolyzing impure water as propellant.
Using a solar concentrator, heat is used to extract the water which is then
condensed as a liquid and stored. Steam is then formed using the solar thermal
reflectors to concentrate the light into a nanoparticle-water mix. This solar
thermal heating (STH) process converts 80 to 99% of the in-coming light into
heat.

Water has been identified as a critical resource both to sustain human-life
but also for use in propulsion, attitude-control, power, thermal and radiation
pro-tection systems. Water may be obtained off-world through In-Situ Resource
Utilization (ISRU) in the course of human or robotic space exploration that
replace materials that would otherwise be shipped from Earth. Water has been
highlighted by many in the space community as a credible solution for
affordable/sustainable exploration. Water can be extracted from the Moon,
C-class Near Earth Objects (NEOs), surface of Mars and Martian Moons Pho-bos
and Deimos and from the surface of icy, rugged terrains of Ocean Worlds.
However, use of water for propulsion faces some important techno-logical
barriers. A technique to use water as a propellant is to electrolyze it into
hydrogen and oxygen that is then pulse-detonated. High-efficiency elec-trolysis
requires use of platinum-catalyst based fuel cells. Even trace ele-ments of
sulfur and carbon monoxide found on planetary bodies can poison these cells
making them unusable. In this work, we develop steam-based propulsion that
avoids the technological barriers of electrolyzing impure water as propellant.
Using a solar concentrator, heat is used to extract the water which is then
condensed as a liquid and stored. Steam is then formed using the solar thermal
reflectors to concentrate the light into a nanoparticle-water mix. This solar
thermal heating (STH) process converts 80 to 99% of the in-coming light into
heat.

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