Establishing a Lunar Microwave Economy

A system called Infrastructure for Lunar Utilization of Microwave Energy (ILUMEN) is proposed to facilitate several important activities supporting the long-term permanent human presence on the Moon. ILUMEN is an extensible infrastructure that leverages multiple-use, high-power microwave sources for an array of integrated lunar materials processing, services, and other critical needs. The paper overviews the ILUMEN concept and describes several initial applications for the system on the Moon.