MOON TRANSPORT CONTAINER

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The conceptual design of the container was developed in Alibre Design software. Verification calculations of the structure were made in SimWise4D software. KeyShot software was used to visualise the container. A welded structure was developed from aluminium (Al 7022) sheets 3 and 4 millimetres thick. The structure consists of three main components. The inner body, shaped like a cylindrical pressure vessel, forms the storage section of the container. It is accessed through a pressure equalisation (decompression) chamber of similar design. This allows the container to be opened both directly from the moon's surface and when connected to the space station. The third component of the container is the outer body, which is shaped like a regular prism with a hexagonal base. Between the outer body and the aforementioned elements, there is an insulating layer. The purpose of this is to prevent high heat losses and reduce the amount of energy required to heat the container. The choice of the hexagonal cross-section of the outer body was based on optimising the space occupied by several containers. Heating elements (orange in the figure) powered by electricity from an external source (lander, vehicle, space base) are placed inside a cylindrical tank.A description of the functionality, the structural form with description, the overall dimensions, the position of the centre of gravity, the FEA results and the visualisation are presented in the attached drawings and in the report.