The ISRU Pilot Excavator is tested in the regolith bin inside Swamp Works at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 28, 2022. Tests use a gravity assist offload system to simulate reduced gravity conditions found on the Moon. On the surface of the Moon, mining robots like the Pilot Excavator will excavate the regolith and take the material to a processing plant where usable elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and water can be extracted for life support systems. The Pilot Excavator can scoop up icy regolith which can be used to make operations on the Moon sustainable.

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Photo credit: © NASA/piemags / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: center, clps, commercial, excavator, isru, kennedy, ksc, lunar, moon, nasa, payload, pilot, regolith, resource, robot, servies, situ, space, utilization