{"id":157988,"date":"2023-02-14T14:23:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T20:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/blue-origin-made-solar-cells"},"modified":"2023-02-14T14:23:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T20:23:22","slug":"blue-origin-made-solar-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/blue-origin-made-solar-cells","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin made solar cells"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether or not Blue Origin puts a lander on the Moon<\/a>, it might play a key role in sustaining lunar operations. Jeff Bezos\u2019 spaceflight company has revealed<\/a> that it can produce solar cells and transmission wire using simulated Moon regolith. The firm\u2019s Blue Alchemist technique uses molten electrolysis to separate the lunar soil\u2019s aluminum, iron and silicon from bound oxygen to extract key materials. The process can build solar cells, cover glass and aluminum wire using only sunlight and the reactor\u2019s silicon.<\/p>\n

This approach would not only save explorers the trouble of importing material, but would be kinder to both the Moon and Earth. There are no carbon-based emissions, no chemicals and no need for water. The resulting solar cells can operate on the Moon for over a decade despite a \u201charsh\u201d environment, Blue Origin claims.<\/p>\n

As Ars Technica<\/em> explains<\/a>, Blue Origin is pitching this as a solution for NASA\u2019s Artemis program<\/a> and missions to Mars<\/a>. The space agency could establish bases or other long-term installations while minimizing the environmental impact. While the concept of using regolith to build outposts<\/a> isn\u2019t new, earlier efforts have largely focused on habitats rather than the power supplying those off-world facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether or not Blue Origin puts a lander on the Moon, it might play a key role in sustaining lunar operations. Jeff Bezos\u2019 spaceflight company has revealed that it can produce solar cells and transmission wire using simulated Moon regolith. The firm\u2019s Blue Alchemist technique uses molten electrolysis to separate the lunar soil\u2019s aluminum, iron [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1633,1514,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-solar-power","category-space-travel","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}