UKSA awards 10 Aqualunar Challenge finalists

Ibadan, 24 July 2024 – The UKSA-led Aqualunar Challenge has named ten finalists, comprising teams of innovators, engineers and scientists who are developing new technologies to provide a permanent manned base on the Moon with reliable water supplies. Each finalist team will receive £30,000 in seed funding and non-financial expert support and mentoring of a similar value to develop their technologies.

The Aqualunar Challenge is part of a £1.2 million international prize funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund and organised by Challenge Works, experts in the design and management of innovation prizes. In addition, the challenge is a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Impact Canada. The UK arm of the challenge will award the UK-led finalist teams £30,000 each to develop their technologies before announcing the winner and finalists in spring 2025.

An estimated 5.6 percent of the soil (regolith) around the lunar south pole is lunar ice. For a permanent manned base on the Moon to be possible, astronauts will need a reliable supply of water for drinking and growing food, as well as oxygen for air and hydrogen for fuel. If the lunar ice can be successfully mined, separated from the soil and purified, NASA's goal of establishing a base by the end of the decade will become feasible.

Speaking about the significance of the challenge, Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said: “The ambition to build a sustainable human presence on the Moon through the NASA-led Artemis missions will only succeed if we have ways to generate a reliable supply of clean water. The Aqualunar Challenge showcases a range of innovative ideas from UK teams and individuals to address this challenge while strengthening ties with our Canadian partners.”

The finalists include

• 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 Water Neutralisation Kit – developed by RedSpace Ltd, Aldershot/Cleethorpes/Richmond (North Yorkshire);
• The Ganymede Chalice: Concentrated Solar Distillation for the Production of Clean Water, developed by the British Interplanetary Society, London;
• I-LUNASYS: Innovative lunar water resources 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;
• SonoChem System: developed by Naicker Scientific Ltd, Gloucestershire;
• Static Water Extraction System (SWES), developed by Interstellar Mapping, London; and
• Titanium Diamond Annular Reactor (TiDAR): Developed by Nascent Semiconductor Ltd, County Durham.