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MONTREAL \u2014 On the moon, access to drinking water could mean the difference between short visits and a permanent human presence, and a Canadian company\u2019s award-winning invention has made colonizing Earth\u2019s natural satellite more within reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no shortage of challenges to purifying water in space,\u201d Daniel Sax, CEO of Canadian Strategic Missions Corporation, said in a recent interview. \u201dWe were able to develop a system designed to operate in the moon\u2019s extreme conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
His company\u2019s invention \u2014 called LunaPure \u2014 won a competition in April run by the Canadian Space Agency, which had invited companies across the country to design technologies capable of extracting and purifying water on the moon.<\/p>\n
Every kilogram sent into space carries extraordinary cost, and the stakes are high: a viable solution for accessible drinking water could drastically cut the need for resupply missions \u2014 and help turn the idea of long-term lunar living into reality.<\/p>\n
And the real-world application for LunaPure is becoming increasingly realistic. NASA\u2019s Artemis program, developed in partnership with Canada\u2019s space agency, aims to land a crew on the moon\u2019s surface in 2028 and to eventually start construction of a lunar base that could support astronauts for weeks or even months at a time. The Artemis II mission saw four crew \u2014 including Canadian Jeremy Hansen \u2014 return to Earth April 10 after a 10-day trip around the moon.<\/p>\n
The goal of the Canadian Space Agency\u2019s Aqualunar Challenge was to identify a technology that was technically feasible, innovative and had long-term potential for future moon missions. Jury member, Marc Guilbert, who holds a PhD in theoretical physics and now works as an entrepreneur, said Sax\u2019s proposal could realistically be adapted and be commercialized in the near future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe evaluated around 45 submissions,\u201d Guilbert said in a recent interview. \u201cEven in something as extreme as water extraction on the moon, there were multiple fundamentally different ways to tackle the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winning proposal \u2014 Sax describes his prototype as no larger than a \u201cbox of books\u201d \u2014 earned the competition\u2019s grand prize of $400,000. It works by using heat from solar energy to melt ice and trigger a chemical process that removes contaminants, producing clean water.<\/p>\n
Dr. Tara Hayden, a lunar geoscientist at Western University who worked with the Canadian Space Agency through the Artemis II and Artemis III programs, says technologies like LunaPure could also be used for producing rocket fuel.<\/p>\n
Moving from ice to rocket fuel \u201dworks by extracting hydrogen and oxygen from water through electrolysis,\u201d said Hayden, who is a post-doctoral associate at Western\u2019s department of earth sciences. Electrolysis is a process that uses electricity to \u201dsplit\u201d water; the gases can then be compressed into liquid form and used as rocket propellant, she explained.<\/p>\n
But accessing water on the moon is far from being straightforward \u2014 water is so scarce its presence is counted in parts per million. \u201cIt is not like Earth, you cannot assume easy access to water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scientific understanding of lunar water has shifted significantly in recent years. With samples taken during Apollo moon missions, \u201cwe thought the moon was bone dry,\u201d said Hayden. But Hayden says her research shows that water is \u201dpresent in multiple reservoirs \u2014 we now believe there is around 600 billion kilograms of water in the form of ice (on the moon).\u201d<\/p>\n
Hayden says current missions are focused on ice trapped in permanently shadowed regions \u2014 deep craters where sunlight never reaches. These areas, among the coldest on the moon, have acted as \u201ccold traps\u201d over billions of years, allowing water to accumulate and remain frozen.<\/p>\n
Upcoming Artemis missions aim to locate these deposits remotely, then eventually to collect samples from them. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly where the ice is,\u201d Hayden said.<\/p>\n
Even once located, extracting lunar ice presents major engineering challenges. That complexity, said Sax, is exactly what technologies like the Aqualunar-winning system aim to address. He said the technology was designed under strict constraints, including limits on mass, power, and self-sufficiency \u2014 all critical considerations for space missions.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything in space is mass and power limited,\u201d he said. \u201cIt costs millions (of dollars) per kilogram to launch materials, so the system has to be extremely efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n
Purification adds another layer of difficulty. \u201cYou are dealing with contaminants and highly variable composition,\u201d Sax said. While the LunaPure system has achieved high levels of purification in testing, he added that it would still need further refinement before being used for human consumption or fuel production.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re getting significantly closer,\u201d Hayden said. \u201cNow, we just need to test (the technologies) specifically in the lunar environment to see if it would be sustainable for helping our long-term cohabitation there.\u201d Trials are expected to unfold over the next few years.<\/p>\n
Deploying such technology on the moon will likely require international collaboration, said Sax.<\/p>\n
\u201dIf we are lucky and play our cards right, our technology could be part of future lunar missions,\u201d he said, adding the system could one day become \u201cone of the processes \u2026 humans are using to purify water on the moon for the next 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond enabling human life on the moon, Hayden said, the technology could also have applications on Earth. \u201cWe could use it to locate and access water that isn\u2019t easily available, particularly in regions facing scarcity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 The Canadian Press<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n