Abstract of the Offer

Interstellar Mapping is a multinational off-Earth mapping and technology company based in UK, USA and Australia. Interstellar Mapping have developed the world's most detailed thermal map of the Moon that enables users to maximise a mission’s success by identifying key strategic sites and performing operational risk assessments. The thermal map is able to provide operating environmental conditions and exposure to operational risks that can impact the mission, equipment and human health.

Description

Interstellar Mapping have developed the only thermal map in world that has data for over 400 million points across the Moon, every 2.5hours for the entire lunar year. Key to the map’s uniqueness, is that it is the only map currently in existence that can determine the: location of the Sun and Earth; quantity of thermal radiation; and temperature profile, of any location on the Moon. This enables end users/users to: identify and risk assess specific locations on the Moon; prospect and extract lunar resources; and, design lunar equipment and habitats which are suited to the local conditions.

The thermal map can maximise investments by providing unprecedented insights into the lunar environment through exploration of the lunar environment, aiding the discovery of lunar resources, minimising investor risk and commercial development of the Moon. Applications can include:

Lunar Sciences and Exploration

Interstellar Mapping’s map data provides companies and educational institutions a platform to observe the Moon’s environment and geological features in unprecedented detail. Using Interstellar Mapping’s modelling technology, the environmental conditions on the ancient Moon can be determined.

Environmental Operating Conditions

Lunar thermal environmental conditions are deemed extreme with known temperatures on the Moon to range between 27K to above 400K, with some locations having temperature fluctuations greater than 200K between night and day. Interstellar Mapping is able to provide the complete thermal cycle at any location that the equipment or astronauts will encounter during the course of the mission, and able to work with companies to help select favourable sites or areas that will result in reduced mission costs and risks.

Location and identification of Lunar Resources

Many of the lunar volatiles identified in the Cabeus crater ejecta are hazardous to human health and spacecraft material, including hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide, methanol and ammonia. Using Interstellar Mapping’s map, the locations that can contain these volatiles and pose a risk to human health, equipment or the mission can be flagged, creating zones of low, medium and high-risk on the Moon.

Lunar Volatile Impact on Rover and Spacecraft Material

Material characteristics are dependent on the working environment. Many materials used for the construction of lunar rovers, landers and other equipment (e.g. titanium and aluminum alloys) being susceptible to degradation when exposed to lunar volatiles. Most lunar volatiles exist in a solid phase, however disturbances to the lunar environment by rovers, spacecraft and other human related activities, including the compaction of the regolith “fluff”, can result in changes to the lunar environment that can result in the sublimation of these volatiles.

Exposure of these volatiles to equipment can result in hydrogen embrittlement, consolidation of the regolith surrounding the equipment or activities and/or the explosive release of the volatiles as they sublimate.

Interstellar Mapping’s thermal map can determine the risk of which volatiles can exist within the working area and if the mission’s activities will impact the volatiles and surrounding environment.

Lunar Volatile Impact on Human Health

NASA’s Spacecraft Water Exposure Guidelines (SWEGs) and Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentration (SMAC) for airborne contaminants as part of NASA’s Spaceflight Human-System Standard, Volume 2: Human factors, Habitability, and Environmental Health (NASA-STD-3001), provide the maximum exposure limits of contaminants that can be in water used for human consumption and atmospheres. Using the concentrations and species of lunar volatiles that were detected in the Cabeus crater ejecta as an example, the impact of these volatiles to human health can be determined.

By identifying and limiting human exposure to lunar regolith from areas on the Moon that could contain volatiles that are toxic to human health, the risk to human health can be minimized.

Advantages and Innovations

Interstellar Mapping’s thermal map is the only complete map that comprehensively provides continuous data at any location of the Moon every 2.5hours for the entire lunar year. From a global uniqueness perspective, the thermal map has few comparable peers. Mapping technology developed for NASA and ESA provide users with limited functionality, and as a proportion of the Moon that is covered, NASA’s map covers less than 1% of the Moon and ESA less than 5%.

The UK National Space Strategy, 2021, outlines the goal of the UK to “build one of the most innovative and attractive space economies in the world” and “through cutting edge research, we will inspire the next generation and sustain the UK’s competitive edge in space science and technology.” The thermal map can provide a platform for Europe’s science, commercial and education sectors to explore and develop the Moon in greater detail that what currently exists today. Furthermore, in the context of Europe's cooperation agreements with the United States in the Artemis Program, the thermal map presents a high commercial value asset to bolster Europe's involvement and standing within the Artemis Program and commercial development of the Moon.

Interstellar Mapping’s thermal map is the only publicly known map in the world able to:

• Remotely locate life critical lunar resources, including water and carbon dioxide.
• Identify areas on the Moon that can support lunar volatiles that can impact human life.
• Perform thermal site assessments for civil infrastructure on the Moon.
• Perform large scale sub-surface geological analysis on the Moon.

Currently, these materials can be costly to manufacture, however, Lucideon works in process optimisation and, as these become commercially available, the price is expected to drop.

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