Tactical mine engineering for Lunar ISRU

[SYNOPSIS]
A significant amount of literature related to ISRU, Space Resource Utilisation or Off-Earth Mining focuses on two main facets. They are the macro level strategies such as business cases or mission architectures and also micro level research on equipment and technology development. There is a gap related to the tactical level of optimisation of lunar ISRU. This can alternatively be described as mine operations engineering or optimisation.
Once a resource is confirmed to exist in a minable quality and quantity and a mining project is committed, the aim will be to operate the mine economically and safely. This presentation investigates the type of information, auxiliary systems, equipment, optimisation tactics, and risk management regimes that are required to safely produce the desired quantity of ore within reasonable time frames and operating constraints.

[BIO]
T M Pelech graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2013 with First Class honours in Mine Engineering. He has 6 years of industry experience in open pit and underground mine engineering and operations. Tim is currently completing a part-time PhD focused on Off-Earth Mining Systems at UNSW while working at Deflector Gold mine in WA. His research interests include mine optimisation and in-situ resource utilisation for space exploration.