Quantifying the exergy requirement of propellant insertion into LEO can lead to insight into the feasibility of a lunar propellant-generating architecture. Spacecraft leaving from Earth can greatly reduce their lift-off mass if in-space refueling would possible. Exergy analyses q
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Quantifying the exergy requirement of propellant insertion into LEO can lead to insight into the feasibility of a lunar propellant-generating architecture. Spacecraft leaving from Earth can greatly reduce their lift-off mass if in-space refueling would possible. Exergy analyses quantify the available energy of a system and show where a reduction in usable energy occurs. Insight into the exergy destruction and input provides a key parameter into the scaling and design of processes and corresponding power systems. The present study aims to define an exergy environment in the lunar PSRs and then to analyze the exergy destruction related to the production of oxygen, ALICE, and hydrolox, in terms of both manufacturing and transportation using a two-stage fully reusable rocket. Extraction processes for ALICE and hydrolox were selected and analyzed w.r.t. the lunar environment to get an understanding of the exergy input. The behavior and exergy requirements of an LEO propellant depot was described. Two fully reusable two-stage rockets using ALICE and hydrolox were designed and compared based on their payload-to-propellant ratio for the oxygen, ALICE, and hydrolox payloads. The study found that the exergetic cost for the insertion of oxygen, hydrolox, and ALICE in LEO were 1.32 GJ/kg , 1.64 GJ/kg, and GJ/kg and 23.3 GJ/kg, 23.4 GJ/kg and 26.9 GJ/kg for the hydrolox and ALICE rocket, respectively.