Lunar Drilling - A meeting of minds
Logica is working with specialists from the space and energy sectors to identify
common requirements for lunar and terrestrial drilling. Sarah Underwood investigates
Since the initial Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s, man has been interested in understanding its composition through drilling. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Apollo missions used hand-held drills and a Russian unmanned mission to the moon also drilled the lunar surface.
To date, drilling on the moon has only penetrated a few metres. NASA and the European Space Agency plan to go back to the moon in the next 12 years and there is a good case to include drilling in the mission profile. But to discover more about the moon’s composition, it will be necessary to drill as deep as 1,000 metres.
This will require knowledge transfer from the oil and gas industry, which is skilled in drilling to enormous depths on earth. Like the space exploration community, however, the oil and gas industry faces formidable challenges as it seeks new resources in remote and often inhospitable environments.
Logica has identified shared issues in lunar and terrestrial drilling development and has brought the space and energy industries together. Through collaboration, it may be possible to achieve the first deep drill on the moon and develop unmanned sub-sea drilling rigs.
Andy Hide, Head of Space, Science and Exploration at Logica, explains: “There is real
potential for the transfer and sharing of technologies. With an understanding of both the energy and space businesses, Logica can be the broker for these technologies. The most interesting crossovers are likely to be in the areas of simulation, telemetric control and visualisation techniques.”