NASA’s Artemis missions plan to land astronauts around the moon’s south pole where there is abundant water ice that can be used as drinking water and to produce oxygen.
The Aqualunar Challenge is a competition between UK and Canadian teams to propose inventive ideas for astronauts to extract and purify water from lunar ice on the surface.
10 UK finalist teams have proposed various technologies like using ultrasound waves, concentrating sunlight with mirrors, or creating a plasma vortex to melt, filter and produce clean drinking water from icy lunar regolith.
The technologies must be able to operate in the harsh cold and dust conditions of the moon’s surface with minimal inputs from Earth.
Over the next months, the teams will develop their proposals with grants and the winner will be chosen in 2025 to help enable water extraction for future moon missions. Canada is running a similar challenge with final winners chosen in 2026.
Producing water from lunar ice is crucial for sustainable human exploration and settlement of the moon by enabling drinking water and oxygen production from in-situ resources.
Source: Space
