US Patent Issued to Blue Origin Manufacturing on Aug. 4 for "Regolith heating and hydrolox fuel production via energy from a nuclear powered brayton cycle" (Florida Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,698,728, issued on Aug. 4, was assigned to Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC (Huntsville, Ala.).

"Regolith heating and hydrolox fuel production via energy from a nuclear powered brayton cycle" was invented by Matthew P. Meeder (Melbourne, Fla.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system powered by a nuclear reactor to heat regolith, extract water from the regolith, perform electrolysis on the water to produce hydrogen and oxygen, and liquify the hydrogen and oxygen to produce fuel is presented. For example, among other possible celestial bodies, the regolith may be lunar regolith and the system may operate on the Moon to perform these activities ...