Jaclyn Whiteman - Duke Energy
Jeffrey Csank - National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Artemis Campaign will return human astronauts to the lunar surface, with the mission to develop and demonstrate technologies to establish a sustained presence on the lunar surface and enable future human missions to Mars and help create a lunar commercial economy. Establishing a sustained permanent presence on the lunar surface will require access to continuous and highly reliable power to support mission needs. In the future, as lunar surface operations and exploration grows and evolve, so will the total power demand and the distance power must be available. Early studies suggest that establishing a lunar commercial economy will likely require additional power, possibly to the MW level, and distances in the 100s of km. This increased distance and demand for highly reliable power drives the need to create an electric power grid with multiple interconnected power assets distributed across the lunar surface (e.g., habitats, in-situ resource utilization plants, etc.), each containing one or more loads and/or sources. Developing a power grid will allow lunar surface operations to resemble electrical utility operations on Earth, allowing power to be generated and consumed where it is convenient and required. Furthermore, a lunar power grid will facilitate the growth of a lunar commercial economy because it provides a means to connect new loads to an existing electrical power system. This presentation will discuss the NASA Artemis Campaign, the needs and challenges of electric power on the lunar surface, the opportunity to define the first planetary surface power grids, and infusion of advanced intelligent power management and distribution technologies.