Extracting water from the Moon will be possible thanks to a collaboration that has occurred between different space exploration technology companies. This operation represents a key step for a possible future human colonization on the satellite. Masten Space Systems, Honeybee Robotics, and Lunar Outpost have partnered to design a rocket mining system that can alter the Moon’s soil with a series of rocket columns.
The rockets turn the ice in certain areas of the lunar surface into liquid, including the south pole of the Moon. The only way to get water from the Moon is through ice since water vapor is rapidly decomposed by sunlight and hydrogen and liquid water cannot remain in its state on the lunar surface.
Get water from the Moon, key
A direct convective heating technique is used. This system can extract up to 420,000 kilos of lunar water from the Moon per year using a rocket engine that allows it to go as deep as two meters.
It is considered that one of the keys to accelerate the fact of inhabiting the Moon or other extraterrestrial places to be able to extract water from these places. This is because water can be used as a beverage, rocket fuel, or other vital resources. Extracting lunar ice can allow the human being that its presence on the satellite is sustained and can be used with other materials also present on the Moon such as oxygen or methane, which would help to support energy, manufacturing and construction.
Masten Space Systems is in a prime position to implement this system and is one of the first commercial companies to send a lander to the Moon. For more than a decade the company has been testing engines and rockets for interactions with the surface.
Ease of transport
These excavations are preferable to rocket rather than drill due to their cost effectiveness and scalability. Although it seems that all the equipment necessary to extract water from the interior of the Moon forms a huge structure that is difficult to transport, in truth a small lunar robot is capable of transporting it easily.
The convective heat technique allows this type of mining to be carried out through obstacles such as rocks. In fact, solar energy can be used to power water stored in oxygen and hydrogen to continue powering the rocket motor for years.
After decades of experimentation, Masten is building a prototype platform with which to test.