• Gabriel Licina
• Jasmine
• Sy Bernot
• Artem Litvinovich
• Rubén Crespo Blanco
• Elizabeth Cranston

1. Pneumatic hoses 2. Frame 3. Pneumatic rotary motor 4. Vectran spokes 5. latching magnetic quick release  6.throwing arm 7. Payload 8. Flywheel 9. Counter weight.

The Launcher’s Model shown Video is of an outdated version please refer to current version in the attached documents.

  The payload will be a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV)  [10] The COPV will contain Hydrogen or Oxygen that will be used by a fuel cell to power the NASA assets on the Moon. 

Inside the crater will be stationed a specially designed free standing collapsible self folding structure made from Vectran and Vectran epoxy scaffold structures that will catch and decelerate the COPV in a place that is central to the mobility platform’s general area of primary operation.  Vectran was chosen for its strength, durability and high performance in low K environments. 2(https://drive.google.com/file/d/11hrDvpW9eqzryHXct11LJyVZvtDElm-P/view?usp=sharing)   Vectran has had success in prior missions such as Mars Pathfinder as well as Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  The strong, lightweight, thermally and chemically stable fibre has been on just about every manned space mission as a layer in NASA's space suits.   The supports for the structure are designed to collapse on impact in such a way that they absorb ballistic energy and translate that into rotational motion as the structure folds and captures the COPV, further dampening the impact of the COPV. Nitinol is used for dampening because of its super elastic properties as well as the memory effect allowing the structure to reset without human labor.
Nitinol can be made into complaint acutorators allowing the structure too aim the net towards the payload too compositein launcher accuracy. For this a thermally regulated power unit will be supplied using chemical batteries and resistive heaters. If permitted, a radiation based heater could be used to reduce battery mass. The main structure will remain thermally unregulated.

Complinet parts are used when possible to minimize bearing surfaces that are degraded from regolith contamination.

1 Vectran complaint core hinge [6] 2. Vectran epoxy superstructure 3. Nitinol Leaf spring and actuator 4. Vectran seine net 5. payload (captured)

[6] The COPV is collected by the mobility platform and fuel is pumped out into a fuel cell on the mobility platform.  Once the COPV is empty the mobility platform can load it into a return launch platform (RLP) with similar specs as the DLP.  At the rim of the crater will be another collapsible self folding structure to capture the COPV. [10]

Payload is a ARDE Part Number 4941 [cite me the tank] and was chosen for its low weight and relatively high acceleration tolerance and high pressure rating for its size.
A shell of abrasion and corrosion resistant material, covers the foam lining.  The COPV is secured in its shell with fibrous anchors, to increase the surface area of impacts so too minimise degradation to the COPV from repeated launch capture cycles.[cite stress testing copvs impact tests]

1 Payload shell 2. COPV 3. Foam lining 4. Fibrous anchors 5. Dust cover 6. Quick hose attachment port 7. Flexible High pressure plumbing

  The Mobile Fuel Cell (MFC) carried by the mobility platform is a downsized version of the already space-proven Fuel Cell Power Plants employed by the Shuttle.  In the Shuttle there were 3 of them, each composed of 96 cells grouped in 3 substacks and supplying between 2 and 12 kW of power [5].  This technology is extremely mature for space operations, since it has already experienced 27,000 hours of operation in 45 missions [3].  If we assume a fuel cell efficiency of 60% for an alkaline fuel cell [3] and assume a less-than-optimal architecture that produces 70% of the original power, each one of those cells can produce at least 20 W. A smaller MFC composed of 39 of those cells can provide up to 205 W of electrical power output and 136.6 W of waste heat that

can be harvested and used to supply the.!

The waste heat generated by the MFC is dealt with through a Heat Management System (HMS). The HMS redirects some of the extra heat to deliver the thermal power requirements of the mobility platform and radiates away the excess. The structure and components of the system can be seen in figure x and table y (work in progress).

The hydrogen fuel cell keeps an operating temperature of 93ºC, from which the heat is extracted through an off-the-shelf heat exchanger to a tubing system that transports the heat using water as a thermal fluid [8]. The heat exchanger GBS 100M with one single plate has a heat flow rate determined by Fourier’s law of heat conduction, shown in equation z below.

Where Q is the net heat transfer, Δt is the time, k is the thermal conductivity (in the case of a plate of stainless steel AISI 316L, 1.656 W/K [9]), A is the area (74 mm * 204mm), ΔT is the difference in temperature (93ºC - 50ºC = 43ºC) and Δx the thickness of the plate (10.3 mm). This heat exchanger has a heat flow rate of 4175 W, well in excess of the ~140 W of thermal energy generated.

The waste thermal energy is partially stored in a gas container holding H2 gas functioning as a thermal battery. H2 gas is the molecule with the highest specific heat capacity, containing 14300 J/kg*K. 5 kg of H2 at 93ºC can store 184469976 J (51241.66 Wh) before reaching 50ºC, enough to deliver the heat power requirements uninterrupted for ~17 minutes. A system of sensors and valves regulates the transfer of excess heat to the thermal battery.

All the heat that is not stored is radiated away using an oxidized steel radiator that emits the excess heat to space. The necessary dimensions of the radiator were calculated using the Stefan-Boltzmann law that describes the energy radiation of a black body (equation x)

The total weight of the MFC and the HMS carried by the mobility platform is 73 kg. The total energy requirements for performing mission 1 carrying that weight according to the consumption indicated in the mission scenario is 56650 kWh. The energy content of H2 is 33 kWh/kg, and the fuel cell efficiency and operation efficiency are 60% and 70%, respectively. Thus, the delivery of 4.09 kg of H2 (or 36.786 kg of H2 + O2) is necessary for performing this mission successfully.

CITATIONS
[1] L. Schlüter, A. Cowley, Review of techniques for In-Situ oxygen extraction on the moon, Planetary and Space Science 181 (2020) 104753. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2019.104753.

[2] M.M. Finckenor, Comparison of High-Performance Fiber Materials Properties in Simulated and Actual Space Environments (2017) NASA/TM—2017–219634

[3] DeRonck, H. J. (1992). Fuel cell technology for lunar surface operations. FUEL, 93, 27965.

[4][https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/11/f27/fcto_fuel_cells_fact_sheet.pdf](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/11/f27/fcto_fuel_cells_fact_sheet.pdf)

[5][https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-eps.html](https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-eps.html)

[6]L. L. Howell, S. P. Magleby, and B. M. Olsen, Eds., Handbook of compliant mechanisms. Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom ; Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2013.

[7][https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/emissivity-coefficients-d_447.html](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/emissivity-coefficients-d_447.html)

[8][https://www.kelvion.com/products/category/brazed-plate-heat-exchangers/](https://www.kelvion.com/products/category/brazed-plate-heat-exchangers/)

[9][https://www.aksteel.com/sites/default/files/2018-01/316316L201706_2.pdf](https://www.aksteel.com/sites/default/files/2018-01/316316L201706_2.pdf)

[10] http://www.ardeinc.com/sketches/copv/4941.pdf

[11][https://www.collinsaerospace.com/-/media/project/collinsaerospace/collinsaerospace-website/product-assets/marketing/s/space/space-qualified-pumps-data-sheet.pdf](https://www.collinsaerospace.com/-/media/project/collinsaerospace/collinsaerospace-website/product-assets/marketing/s/space/space-qualified-pumps-data-sheet.pdf?rev=af2f294a39b24677a18630a96bbbac25)

[12][https://www.twmetals.com/products/tubing/stainless-steel/aerospace/21-6-9.html](https://www.twmetals.com/products/tubing/stainless-steel/aerospace/21-6-9.html?p=1&product_list_order=outside_diameter)