Characterisation of hydrated Martian minerals for development of water extraction devices

The NASA Artemis program plans to land humans at the South Pole of the Moon as early as 2024. One of the mission goals of Artemis is to "Find and use water and other critical resources needed for long-term exploration". We have created a Martian regolith simulant from alumina and silica which contains trace levels of key minerals found on the Martian surface. The simulant has been exposed to a relative humidity to recreate ground conditions for investigations into the amount of water the Martian regolith can sustain. Microscopy of the RMIT simulant reveals a microstructure similar to that found in literature. X-ray powder diffraction data corroborates the crystalline structure of the simulant after heat treatment. Collection of extracted water from hydrated Martian minerals can be implemented using zeolites. Here we present preliminary designs of a zeolite filter for such a device.