OFF-WORLD, INC. SBIR Phase I Award, July 2022

For this Phase I SBIR, OffWorld will deliver a conceptual design and tech demo that leverages our proven, rugged terrestrial robotic mining capabilities to develop a viable solution to extract icy regolith from beneath the dry overburden on the lunar surface.nbsp;Our proposed innovation is distinguished by its heritage as an evolution of our existing, durable modular mining platform and associated machine learning framework.The proposed Phase I project will:Deliver a conceptual design that adapts current OffWorld terrestrial mining digger bot species for excavation operations on the surface of the Moon.Propose a development plan for the maturation of the necessary technologies and the development of robot production capacity.Calculate the scale of robotic squads necessary to successfully meet NASA lunar excavation production requirements as identified in the SBIR solicitation.Consider the unique challenges presented by the lunar environment including temperature extremes, low gravity, radiation, dust, and vacuum.Optimize the system to account for the current limited understanding of lunar regolith, considering variations and inconsistencies in the science of lunar geology.Maximize reliability and durability of individual components and design a highly robust and resilient system architecture.nbsp;Design autonomous maintenance and servicing strategies to account for component failure and to enable a minimum of 5 years of continuous swarm operation.Minimize system mass to the maximum extent possible to reduce lunar mass delivery requirements.Incorporate lessons learned and statistical analysis of current OffWorld terrestrial mining programs.Define requirements for sensors and feedback mechanisms necessary for system optimization and to achieve fully automated icy regolith excavation.