Moondust in the Wind

Blue Origin—the space-launch subsidiary of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s business empire—has been awarded a $35-million NASA Tipping Point partnership by dint of which the Kent, Washington-based aerospace concern will further the development of its Blue Alchemist initiative.

In the space agency’s convoluted argot, a technology is considered at tipping point if a single investment therein stands to significantly mature subject technology, increase the likelihood of its insinuation into a commercial space application, and bring it to market at a scale beneficial to both government and commercial stakeholders. The partnerships established through Tipping Point selections combine NASA funding and industry contributions of at least 25-percent of the total estimated project costs—ten-percent for companies employing five-hundred or fewer personnel.

Announced in February 2023, Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist is a nascent, end-to-end, scalable, autonomous solution by which solar-cells are produced from silicates derived of lunar regolith—which is to say, the fine dust and crushed rock with which the moon’s surface is replete.

Predicated upon a process known as molten regolith electrolysis, Blue Alchemist stands to provide abundant electrical power to planned, near-future lunar infrastructure, to include human habitations, research and industrial facilities, and launch-pads. Serendipitously, oxygen—a commodity prized among spacefarers—is among the byproducts of molten regolith electrolysis.

For its $35-million investment, NASA expects to see a demonstration of the aforementioned process in a simulated lunar environment by 2026.

Pat Remais, vice-president of NASA’s capabilities directorate of space systems development, remarked: “Harnessing the vast resources in space to benefit Earth is part of our mission, and we’re inspired and humbled to receive this investment from NASA to advance our innovation. First we return humans to the Moon, then we start to live off the land.”

On Earth, Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist process comprises the synthesis of regolith simulants at once chemically and mineralogically equivalent to lunar regolith—accounting for representative lunar variability in grain size and bulk chemistry. Once synthesized, the regolith simulants are loaded into a purpose-built reactor which produces iron, silicone, and aluminum via molten regolith electrolysis—via which a powerful electrical current separates the antecedent elements from the oxygen to which they are bound.

The process produces silicon of 99.999-percent purity—the degree requisite the production of solar-cells. While typical earthly silicon purification methods require large amounts of toxic and explosive chemicals, the Blue Alchemist process makes use of only sunlight and the silicon within the proprietary reactor.

FMI: www.blueorigin.com