As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) moves towards establishing a permanent presence on the moon, a Canadian company is hoping to solve one of the biggest challenges for astronauts in deep space – accessing drinkable water.
The Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation (CSMC) was recently awarded $400,000 in grant funding after it won the Aqualunar Challenge, led by the Canadian Space Agency in partnership with Impact Canada.
The challenge aimed to identify innovative companies that could develop technologies “to purify moon water for human deep-space missions.”
CSMC was awarded the grand prize last month for its “LunaPure” technology, which the company says offers a sustainable and low-maintenance system to purify water trapped in the form of ice in the moon’s polar regions.
“Our technology takes that frozen water from permanently shut-out craters, and it would melt it utilizing multiple methods of solar energy,” CSMC CEO and founder Daniel Sax told CTV Your Morning on Friday.
“And then purify it by extracting both the razor-sharp lunar dust, as well as all the contaminants that you wouldn’t want to consume in that water.”
Scientists estimate that the moon holds around 600 billion kilograms of water in the form of ice.
“(The water) comes from a mixture of solar winds, which have deposited it over billions of years into what are called cold traps in the permanently shadowed craters where it never really sees the light of the sun,” said Sax.
“It is one of the coldest places in the solar system, so it stays frozen. As well, there are water-bearing meteors that actually impact the moon and then it stays in (the form) of frozen water.”
Sax said CSMC is looking to fully develop and test the technology as quickly as possible with the aim of having it available for use in future moon missions.
He hopes the technology will play a role in NASA’s Artemis program, which last month sent astronauts further into space than ever before. The ultimate goal of future Artemis missions is to establish a permanent moon base that hosts humans.
“At the same time, we’re developing a nuclear reactor to power those lunar bases,” Sax added.
