To Space and Beyond – Andy Thomas Space Centre Tour

On 4 August 2022, a group of 16 AusIMM members were treated to a guided tour of the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources at the University of Adelaide. Our primary tour guide was Associate Professor John Culton, the Director of the Centre. This was a follow up to an initial tour by John in 2021. Of course, many things have changed in this time, and it was wonderful to be updated.

We were briefed on the latest developments at the Space Centre, including the plans for a huge new M2M facility in Roseworthy which should be up and running by the end of the year. This is very exciting for Adelaide and Australia as it will be by far the largest of its kind globally – meaning NASA themselves will be very jealous!

John provided an overview and background on current activities. This included:

• The Australian Rover Challenge: the Australian team actually came second in the recent US Global Challenge.
• The Exterres Lab – Extraterrestrial Environment Simulation – regolith pit, sand pit, Lunar/Martian construction component production.
• Exterres Mission Control – which has mixed robotic fleet control – Uni Adelaide sites, NASA test sites, Deep Space Network.
• And the M2M – Roseworthy - Permanent off-Earth analogue site: 8 km2. This will make it possible for teams of Rovers and Flyers to travel simultaneously which will be unique globally. It will support autonomous traverse, site preparation, construction, astronaut integration and will have an onsite work facility, onsite mission control and conference facilities.

There was interesting discussion about the role Australia is playing in the agricultural space – using knowledge of growing things in difficult conditions (arid and hypersaline/poor quality water) to assist in how things will be grown, and life can be sustained off-earth.

To establish a permanent presence off-earth we must be self-sufficient and use the resources that exist and that can be nurtured. This will present significant challenges. Talented people at Adelaide University, the Space Centre, CSIRO, NASA and other organisations are all working on the solutions.

We then spent time in the Exterres laboratory viewing the dirt and regolith pits where simulations take place.

It was also very exciting to see the production of lunar construction materials – the largest pieces that have been manufactured to date.

We discussed various research projects including how to extract minerals from asteroids in zero gravity, how to improve astronauts’ food intake, developing AI software to control rovers and drones, powering earthmoving trucks with rechargeable batteries, building robots that are impervious to dust and new remote sensors that can identify water and rare and critical minerals from space.

And all this work will also bring benefits closer to home, and sooner than you might think. It’s an exciting time as smart people, backed by innovative organisations, work out how we to apply these technologies in the terrestrial resource sector.

The group then moved onto a tour of the Prescott Environmental Luminescence Laboratory and were accompanied by Tom Payton.

Tom showed us many projects that are underway in this section of the university, including fluorine mineral sensing and how they are unlocking the value from critical minerals with breakthrough sensors for hard-rock lithium mining.

We were treated to a demonstration of novel luminescence which is assisting in the dating of certain objects and artefacts and can be induced under certain conditions.

A big thank you to all the staff who took time out of their day to show us their research, and to John Culton for organising the tour.

We hope to organise another tour in the near future and encourage our members to keep an eye for this and join us next time.
It is exciting to see so much cutting-edge work being carried out in Adelaide and this is something to be celebrated.

Janine Herzig
Past AusIMM President