Investigation on a lunar energy storage and conversion system based on the in-situ resources utilization

Establishing an energy supply on the Moon is one tremendous challenge in research on the lunar environment due to limitations regarding the carrying capacity and cost of traditional means of rocket. In this paper, a lunar energy storage and conversion system based on in-situ resource utilization (LES-ISRU) is demonstrated, and its operating performance is investigated. The proposed system consists of three subsystems: a high-magnification solar energy concentrating device, an energy storage system based on the in-situ utilization of lunar regolith, and a thermoelectric conversion device. The experimental results show that the in-situ energy storage system can store about 394 kJ of thermal energy for power supply purposes, and the heat supply can be sustained for about 14 h without solar energy input. The thermoelectric conversion device takes full advantage of a Stirling generator to generate power up to about 8.3 W during the Moon daytime. The thermal energy stored by the in-situ energy storage system can realize a continuous power supply for 51 min at night on the Moon. The new system developed in this study can efficiently collect and transform solar energy using extraterrestrial in-situ resources, providing a sustainable power and heat replenishment solution for future deep-space missions.