The global climate crisis forces the search for new ecological sources of energy and mining methods. Space mining can solve those problems, but, first, wide geological surveying space missions using drilling methods are necessary. Additionally, drilling methods will be important in geological, life searching, geoengineering, and many other studies of extraterrestrial objects. Space is becoming a new area of possible drilling applications. Designing future space drilling missions requires adapting drilling technologies, not only to the conditions of the space environment, but also to the economic and technological realities of the space industry. The possibility of constructing low mass coring devices with energy consumption below 100 W was investigated in this paper. Minimization of energy consumption and mass of a coring is essential for the device to be used in space missions, when lander instruments supplied by low power electric battery are expected to work reliably and the launch cost (depending of mass) at an economically acceptable level. Some similar devices investigated for the future space missions are known from papers listed in the references. To answer whether or not it is possible to build such devices, the authors performed initial drillability tests. The obtained results are presented in this paper.

The article uses the Lunar QuickMap tool to analyze and select five highly promising cold microtraps on the Moon in terms of the size of the deposits they contain and their accessibility with the use of rovers and other wheeled vehicles. Since the thickness of the layer containing raw materials is subject to high uncertainty, three arbitrary scenarios for the value of this parameter were assumed: pessimistic (1 cm), nominal (5 cm), and optimistic (1 m). For the analyzed sites, a preliminary market valuation of the raw materials contained therein will be obtained at USD 74 billion; USD 370 billion; USD 7403 billion for the assumed pessimistic, normal, and optimistic scenarios, respectively. The article presents a business and technological perspective on the issue of space mining on the Moon. It is also a selected synthesis of the state of knowledge about space mining on the Moon.

The article presents an economic model enabling the assessment of the profitability of lithium extraction using the direct lithium extraction (DLE) method from geothermal brines from a single well. The model enables a preliminary simplified assessment of the profitability of DLE projects, which can be helpful in selecting the optimal locations for such projects and drilling production wells. The article also presents the critical role of lithium as a raw material for the decarbonization of the world economy, methods of its extraction and the economic prospects of the market for this raw material. It also presents exemplary DLE projects in the world.

This article presents a method enabling to determine the minimum radius of pipe bending, in which it is possible to move freely a cylinder with defined dimensions. A respective mathematical model has been presented. The below-described method can be useful in the future, while designing mechatronic tools for working in lateral bores starting from a vertical bore, and also while designing inspection robots moving in pipes and pipelines, methods, results, and conclusions