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Asteroid Regolith Powder Chamber
- Program: Mechanical Engineering
- Course: EN.530.404 MechE Senior Design
- Year: 2026
Project Description:
Asteroid mining has the potential to create essential materials for use in building structures, producing water, and generating power in space. The ability to process these materials directly in space will be crucial for enabling long-duration missions, reducing launch costs, and protecting Earth’s environment. This project, sponsored by Karman+, focuses on a compact system that can efficiently move asteroid particles from the grinder to a receptacle chamber on Karman+’s asteroid mining missions. The team’s chosen mechanism is a single variable pitch auger, a positive-displacement regolith transfer mechanism. A compact motor drives the auger’s rotational movement, along with a torque reduction system to mitigate the risk of jamming.
Project Photo:
KARMAN26 team stands with their prototype and throughput test chanber.
