By Nick Stewart
If Northern Ontario Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) has anything to say about it, the man in the moon will have some input from Northern Ontario as experts prepare for a 2009 launch.
The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) could decide to include NORCAT’s work on the drilling systems for use in outer space.
NASA has asked NORCAT to develop a drill and processing system to explore hydrogen and water content in the subsurface of the lunar South Pole. This requires an autonomous, 20-kilogram unit capable of drilling one metre below surface.
The Canadian Space Agency and NASA were already working on a drill system that could be used in outer-space locations. The device could bore a hole as deep as 15 metres below surface.
“Sudbury has become a central node for space mining,” says Dale Boucher, manager, prototype development. “The rest of the world is looking to us for that expertise.”
While much of the work for either project still lies squarely in the concept phase, efforts are underway to scale down the necessary processing devices.
The nature of these two contracts, which stretch into early 2009, are so similar as to allow the projects to complement each other. Moreover, there are spinoffs rising from the projects that have allowed NORCAT to develop a variety of related devices.
Boucher says part of the difficulty NORCAT staff has found when trying to develop tools for mining in space environments has been a lack of proper test material. Relatively small amounts of lunar soil have made their way back to Earth. Much of it is under heavy security and certainly not available for development purposes. As a result, NORCAT and joint-venture partner Electric Vehicle Controllers Ltd. have endeavored to develop a lunar soil substitute, by mixing and processing material from outcrops in the Sudbury area.
While the material still awaits NASA certification for suitability as a substitute, Boucher says it has nevertheless proven to be quite useful. The CSA has even loaned NORCAT a special cryo-cooler, which uses liquid nitrogen to bring the lunar simulant down to near-lunar levels. A hole on top of the device allows for a drill to be dropped into cooled material for testing the integrity of drill bits. It also provides an environment where people and machines can be tested. In fact, NORCAT is looking to construct a special hypobaric chamber at its Onaping Falls test mine site to simultaneously experiment with extreme lunar tempratures and atmospheric pressure. There are no simulators featuring the two elements alongside one another. Even the smallest elements like dust have to be examined.
“If you go back and look at the Apollo mission photos, you see dirt all over these space suits,” says Boucher. “When they got back into the shuttle, they had dust in the joints of their suits, which wore away and were literally hours away from failure.”
To compensate for this problem, NORCAT is looking to recreate the lunar environment entirely from scratch, and while the project is still in the very early stages, the concept has stirred up interest from international space agencies.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has already asked to test its lunar lander should the simulator become fully functional, and both the European Space Agency and NASA have expressed interest in evaluating its potential.
NORCAT gained international exposure when they developed a special hydrogeology drill that brought the research centre into the international lime light. The drill has the ability to work “dry,” without having to use flushing fluids. This would ensure any fluids found by the drill are not contaminated. Although this particular project has been in development for two years, its progress has advanced to the point where various drill bits are being considered for the prototype.
