Fabrication and Characterization of Low-Mass and Flexible Heater for Lunar Applications

The conducted study reports fabrication and characterization of lightweight, flexible carbon veil (CV) heaters as potential low-voltage thermal management devices for lunar applications. Flexible heaters are crucial in aerospace systems for controlling component temperatures, ensuring operational reliability, and removing moisture from instrument panels, spacecraft, and satellites operating under extreme environmental conditions. Conventional heaters, typically constructed from metals such as stainless steel, CuNi44, or Inconel 600, are limited by their high areal density and weight, restricted operating temperature ranges, and significant thermal expansion. The CV heaters proposed and tested here offer significant advantages over these conventional metal-based heaters, including low areal density (∼17 g/m2), negligible linear thermal expansion (1.5 × 10−6 K−1), high flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, making them ideal for extraterrestrial environments. Such properties can also address the transport challenges associated with delivering heavy metallic heaters from Earth to the Moon. The studied CV heaters were fabricated by integrating nonwoven carbon fiber CV mats with copper foil electrodes and coating the heaters with a thin film of water-repellent silicone layer, thus enabling rapid, uniform Joule heating. Thermal performance was evaluated under near lunar temperature conditions: ambient (24.5 °C), elevated (+120 °C, simulating lunar daytime), and subambient (−18 °C, partly simulating lunar night). In all cases, the CV heaters rapidly achieved surface temperatures exceeding 400 °C, while the central heating zone in contact with the ice reached 280−340 °C. Under these conditions, ice specimens melted completely within 5.45−8.50 min, depending on the environmental temperature. The CV heaters demonstrated stable and repeatable thermal performance, maintaining structural integrity and electrical functionality throughout repeated heating cycles, mechanical bending, and cryogenic exposure to liquid nitrogen (−196 °C). These results represent terrestrial proof-of-concept validation. In a true lunar environment, where convective heat transfer is negligible and oxidation is absent, heater performance is expected to further improve due to reduced heat losses. Overall, the findings establish carbon veil heaters as promising low-mass, conformable, and energy-efficient thermal devices for future lunar infrastructure, including ice melting, harvesting water, thermal regulation of habitats and equipment, and protection of electronic and mechanical systems under extreme extraterrestrial conditions.