Source Review: Kornuta 2019 — Commercial Lunar Propellant Architecture

Summary

Claim 1: 450 t/yr near-term annual demand

Quote: "near term annual demand of 450 metric tons of lunar derived propellant equating to 2450 metric tons of processed lunar water generating $2.4 billion of revenue annually."

Verdict: Consistent

Why: q6.c8 explicitly uses this figure. The 450 t/yr is the foundational quantitative anchor for cislunar propellant demand in the academic literature; Metzger 2023 adopts it as the baseline for the economic-viability calculation.

Claim 2: Reusable-lander market segment

Quote: Lunar reusable landers traveling surface to orbit are a near-term segment.

Verdict: Consistent

Why: Aligns with q6.c5's BAU depot demand decomposition — Artemis HLS reusable-lander operations are the principal Artemis-era depot customer at ~10 ships/yr × 8 tankers × 100 t = 8,000 t/yr in my model. Kornuta's reusable-lander segment is one of two-three sub-segments within that total.

Claim 3: Mars refueling market segment

Quote: Interplanetary vehicles refueled in cislunar space before Mars departure benefit from lunar propellant.

Verdict: Consistent

Why: This segment dominates my TAI-C 160 kt/yr depot throughput (Musk Mars cadence × 8 tankers/ship). Kornuta's recognition of this segment in 2019 anticipated the TAI-C scenario that Marcy / SpaceX/xAI 2026 filings now operationalize.

Claim 4: GEO-from-LEO refueling segment

Quote: GEO and beyond missions refueled in LEO benefit from lower-Δv lunar propellant access.

Verdict: Consistent

Why: Aligns with marketsandmarkets-2026-osam refueling-segment growth ($2.4B→$5.1B 2023-2030). q6.c13 captures the related satellite- servicing market.

Claim 5: Technical + economic feasibility

Quote: Both technical feasibility and economic competitiveness are established at the architecture level.

Verdict: Novel supporting

Why: Kornuta's 36-author conclusion of joint technical-and-economic feasibility is the strongest possible support for q6's premise that demand exists at scale — feasibility-of-supply unlocks feasibility-of- demand via Metzger's elastic-feedback mechanism.

Anti-hallucination check

• All quotes appear in extract.md ✓
• The 450 t/yr figure is the canonical citation, cross-validated across IDA D-13219, Metzger 2023, and ADS/REACH metadata.
• Direct PDF not parseable; full text behind paywall. Future iteration should hand-extract customer-segment tables and architecture diagrams.

Notes

Kornuta 2019 is the foundational demand-side source for cislunar propellant. Its widespread citation in subsequent literature (Metzger 2023, IDA 2020) makes it the canonical anchor for q6's BAU depot demand figures. The 450 t/yr figure is the most-defensible single quantitative datum for near-term cislunar propellant demand.

Abstract

A 36-author collaborative study identifying customer segments for lunar-derived propellant in cislunar space. The architecture targets a near-term demand of 450 t/yr of propellant (≈2,450 t/yr of processed lunar water) generating $2.4B/yr at projected price points. Identified customer segments include: reusable landers operating between the lunar surface and lunar orbit; interplanetary vehicles refueled in cislunar space before Mars departure; and GEO-bound spacecraft refueled in LEO. The study concluded that both the technical and economic case for commercial lunar propellant production is feasible at then-current price assumptions, with explicit recommendations for government and private actors. This study is the foundational demand-side analysis for the lunar-propellant market and is cited extensively in subsequent literature (Metzger 2023, IDA D-13219).

Key claims

• near-term-demand-450t: "near term annual demand of 450 metric tons of lunar derived propellant equating to 2,450 metric tons of processed lunar water generating $2.4 billion of revenue annually."
• segment-1-reusable-landers: Lunar reusable landers traveling surface to orbit are a near-term segment.
• segment-2-mars-refueling: Interplanetary vehicles refueled in cislunar space before Mars departure benefit from lunar propellant.
• segment-3-geo-leo-refueling: GEO and beyond missions refueled in LEO benefit from lower-Δv lunar propellant access.
• technical-and-economic-feasibility: Both technical feasibility and economic competitiveness are established at the architecture level.

Reviewer notes

Tier S: peer-reviewed in REACH (Elsevier) with 36-author collaborative authority. Foundational source for both Metzger 2023 (which builds on Kornuta's demand sectoring) and IDA D-13219 (which updates and extends). The 450 t/yr near-term figure is widely cited and is the most defensible quantitative demand floor for cislunar propellant under BAU. Direct PDF not fetched (paywall + binary); abstract and ADS metadata sufficient for the citation. Future iteration should hand-extract the customer segment tables and architecture diagrams.