CORE BUSINESS
The core business of Maana Electric is the development of dual use applications integrating In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) concepts and sustainability/power systems technologies, with the aim to be the utility company of the Solar System. We use our proprietary ISRU technologies – originally thought for the space industry – to revolutionize solar supply chain (silicon, cells and panels), on Earth and in space. The introduction of the ISRU paradigm into the manufacturing processes allows substantial cost saving and at same time tackle the issues of the PV industry reducing CO2 emissions, water consumption and waste generation.
PRODUCTS & SERVICES
The ISRU technologies at Maana Electric enable manufacturing from raw materials in low-value feedstocks like desert sand (silicon, aluminum, iron, precious metals) and regolith (silicon, aluminum, iron, titanium). Maana’s terrestrial strategy focuses on:
- Green Silicon: Producing high-grade silicon without carbothermal reduction, eliminating emissions.
- Green Cells: Manufacturing eco-friendly heterojunction (HTJ) cells to reduce CO2 footprint and eliminate hazardous chemicals, cutting energy consumption on an industrial scale.
- TerraBox: A deployable mini-factory for solar panels, requiring less space, electricity, and manpower, adaptable to various environments.
- Maana also develops ISRU products for planetary exploration, such as metal and oxygen extraction from regolith and energy for Lunar Night Survival, and specializes in infrastructures for simulating lunar conditions, like ESRIC’s Dirty Thermal Vacuum Chamber project.
TECHNICAL MEANS
Maana Electric focused from the very beginning on a rapid prototyping approach with the development of inhouse capabilities oriented to independent manufacturing, testing and analysis/characterization. This allowed Maana Electric to fast progress and develop a wide range and multisectoral expertise. Our facilities currently host
- A laboratory dedicated to sand and regolith processing,
- An area equipped to testing metallurgical and high temperature applications
- An ISO-8 clean room and an ISO-7 clean room for clean operations (such as semiconductor testing=.
- A state of the art and self-sufficient workshop.
In addition, Maana Electric is equipped with many testing devices for fundamental material science and semiconductor physics and tools for analysis and materials characterization (XRF, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, metallography, profilometer, sun simulator and several other developed inhouse).
MAJOR SPACE PROJECTS
Maana Electric’s major projects with the European Space Agency focus on the development of ISRU capabilities to support incoming lunar exploration. The main developments refer to:
- TERRABOX, a terrestrial testbench of Maana’s ISRU technologies for solar panel manufacturing.
- SOURCE, a lunar technology demonstrator to validate the extraction of silicon and oxygen from lunar regolith and enable the development of the LUNABOX infrastructure to produce solar panels on the Moon.
- ACME, a reactor for producing thermal energy to enable survivability of mobility units, landers and habitats during the Lunar Nights.
- DTVC, a space simulator Maana is developing in collaboration with Spartan Space, Haux Life Support and ESRIC in strategic partnership with ESA.
