Fresnel-lens solar sintering fuses lunar regolith into solid material using nothing but concentrated sunlight, avoiding the mass and power penalties of electric furnaces. This tool models the thermal yield, system mass, and power of such a concentrator so you can size it for in-situ construction on the Moon.
It pairs a physics-based sintering model with predictive sun-tracking, and is designed for low power, dust tolerance, and the long lunar day — the conditions that actually govern surface operations.
Concentrated flux equals solar input times lens efficiency times thermal efficiency, reduced by dust losses; that net thermal power drives the sintering rate. Because the concentrator uses direct sunlight rather than converting to electricity first, it delivers high effective efficiency at very low system mass.
Accurate pointing matters: a well-tuned Unscented Kalman Filter keeps the focal spot on target under noisy, dusty conditions while spending minimal power on movement, which is why net delivered heat — not raw collector area — is the figure that counts.
A modest concentrator with good lens and thermal efficiency delivers enough net thermal power to sinter regolith at a steady tonnes-per-hour rate for a few kilograms per square metre of hardware — dramatically lighter than shipping a comparable electric kiln from Earth.
Skipping the photovoltaic-and-heater conversion chain saves mass and power; direct concentrated sunlight reaches sintering temperatures efficiently.
Lunar dust on optics scatters and absorbs light, lowering delivered flux; the model lets you derate for it.
Sun position must be predicted through sensor noise and dust; a UKF gives robust, low-jitter pointing so the focus stays on target.
No — it is a transparent first-order model for planning and teaching using adjustable public assumptions.
Yes, it runs in your browser and supports 25 languages.