Moon-water-purification challenge UK finalists announced

As part of the Aqualunar Challenge, the UK Space Agency and Challenge Works have awarded 10 technologies £300,000 funding, to make human habitation on the moon feasible.

The soil in the lunar south pole is estimated to contain 5.6% (regolith) of ice. If this can be extracted, separated and purified, it aids NASA’s goal of establishing a base on the moon (i.e. the Artemis campaign) by the end of the decade.

‘To sustain a permanent crewed base on the Moon over years and decades, astronauts will need a reliable water supply, which we can also use to produce oxygen and hydrogen’, says UK Space Agency Reserve Astronaut and Chair of the Aqualunar Challenge judging panel, Meganne Christian.

‘It is expensive and risky to send a continuous convoy of rockets from Earth to the Moon to keep a base supplied, which is why we need to develop the technologies that can purify the water that is already on the Moon.’

Expanding on the situation in the moon, Christian says, ‘The lunar environment is unforgiving. With no atmosphere and parts of the surface having never seen sunlight, the ice in the soil is as hard as steel and heavily contaminated with lunar dust - known as regolith - which forms a grinding paste when wet…The technologies being developed must have minimal maintenance – they cannot rely on components being sent up from Earth and it won’t be possible for astronauts to regularly change filters and tighten nuts and bolts’.

The challenge is in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency and Impact Canda, with the winners announced in Spring 2025.

A list of full finalists can be found below. A greater debrief on each project can be found on the UK Government’s Business and Industry Press Release.

AquaLunarPure: Supercritical Water Purification on the Moon – developed by Queen Mary University of London

Cyclic Volatile Extractor (CVE) – developed by Minima Design Ltd, Suffolk

FRANK – Filtered Regolith Aqua Neutralisation Kit – developed by RedSpace Ltd, Aldershot/Cleethorpes/Richmond (North Yorkshire)

Ganymede’s Chalice: Solar Concentrator Distillation for Clean Water Production – developed by British Interplanetary Society, London

I-LUNASYS: Innovative lunar water resource system – developed by Perspective Space-Tech Ltd, London

Lunasonic – developed by Shaun Fletcher and Dr Lukman Yusuf, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow

Regolith Ice Plasma Purifier for Lunar Exploration (RIPPLE) – developed by Regolithix Ltd, West Yorkshire