Prototype of a Conveyor System for the Transport of Lunar Regolith

Transport equipment designed to operate on the Moon will function under conditions of low gravity and the absence of an atmosphere, and will have to meet very high requirements regarding resistance to extremely low temperatures. Moreover, they should be resistant to highly abrasive lunar dust and should not contribute to its stirring from the surface. This article presents the concept, prototype, and laboratory tests of the tandem conveyor system for the transport of lunar regolith—TOLRECON (Tandem Of Lunar REgholit CONveyors). The prototype of this device was created as a result of research and development work of the student scientific group SpaceTeam AGH. The TOLRECON concept involves combining a rod scraper conveyor for horizontal transport of the regolith with a bucket elevator responsible for vertical transport. TOLRECON is equipped with a single synchronous drive system, which simultaneously drives the scraper conveyor and the drive sprocket of the bucket conveyor through a gearbox. The reciprocating motion of the rod gently moves portions of regolith with the help of scrapers, dosing them into buckets mounted on a single chain. As a result of laboratory tests of the device’s design, the number of kinematic pairs sensitive to dust was minimized, the possibility of stirring up dust was limited through the optimization of the shape of scrapers and buckets, and the weight of the entire device was reduced.