Investigation on the Thermal Properties of an Lunar Icy Regolith Simulant

With the moon becoming a more and more important stepping
stone for human space exploration, we need to learn more about
its properties and resources. The presence of water ice in some
Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSR’s) on the lunar surface is
already certain [1,2] and if extracted, the water could be used for
propellant production and as a consumable for astronauts, making
future space missions much more affordable.
Knowing the thermal properties of the material beforehand would
be highly beneficial to future extraction attempts. This is why in this
work thermal conductivity measurements have been done on a
lunar highlands simulant (LHS-1) as well as an icy simulant made
from LHS-1 and spherical μm-sized granular ice particles to simulate
the PSR‘s icy material.