SpaceTech 2026 Lightning Talks – Lanie McKinney

Why It Matters

A scalable plasma ISRU system could supply oxygen, fuel, and fertilizer on Mars, lowering launch costs and expanding human exploration capabilities.

Key Takeaways

• Plasma reactors can convert Martian CO₂ into oxygen efficiently.
• Low‑pressure plasma performance remains under‑characterized for Mars ISRU.
• Nanosecond pulse DBD reactor shows scalable, tunable conversion rates.
• Conversion depends on pulse count and voltage, defining a scaling law.
• Next step: integrate oxygen separation and test CO₂‑water hydrocarbon production.

Summary

Laney McKinney outlined a plasma‑based strategy for Mars in‑situ resource utilization, targeting the production of oxygen, fuel, and fertilizers from CO₂, nitrogen, and water available on the Red Planet. She highlighted the critical design constraint of consumable mass for human missions and argued that on‑site generation could dramatically reshape mission architecture.

The research focuses on a nanosecond‑pulse dielectric barrier discharge (NRPD‑DBD) reactor optimized for low‑pressure Martian conditions. Experimental data from 80 triplicate runs reveal clear trends: higher voltage boosts conversion but lowers energy efficiency, while increased flow rate improves efficiency at the cost of conversion. Crucially, the team discovered that pulse frequency and flow rate both govern the number of pulses a gas molecule experiences, allowing performance to be collapsed into two variables—pulse count and peak voltage—forming a practical scaling law for future designs.

McKinney emphasized, “flow rate and pulse frequency actually control the same metric,” underscoring the simplification this insight brings to reactor engineering. She also noted that while high‑efficiency, atmospheric‑pressure plasma data exist, low‑pressure regimes relevant to Mars remain under‑explored, positioning her work at the frontier of space‑focused plasma science.

The implications are significant: a scalable, tunable plasma reactor could enable autonomous production of life‑support consumables, reducing launch mass and cost while increasing mission flexibility. The next milestones involve integrating oxygen separation technology and expanding experiments to CO₂‑water mixtures for hydrocarbon synthesis, moving the concept toward a full end‑to‑end ISRU system.

Original Description

Lanie McKinney, PhD student