Ten cutting-edge teams of innovators, engineers, and scientists — including one from Scotland — that are developing new technologies to provide a permanent crewed base on the moon with reliable water supplies have been named finalists in the Aqualunar Challenge.

The Aqualunar Challenge is part of a £1.2 million international prize funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund, and delivered by Challenge Works — experts in designing and running innovation challenge prizes.

This challenge is a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Impact Canada. The UK track of the challenge is awarding UK-led finalist teams £30,000 each to develop their technologies, before a winner and runners-up are announced in spring 2025.

Around the lunar south pole, it’s estimated that 5.6% of the soil (regolith) is water frozen as ice. For a permanent crewed 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 extracted, separated from the soil and purified, it makes NASA’s goal of establishing a base by the end of the decade viable. The Artemis campaign, as it’s known, is supported by the UK Space Agency through its membership of the European Space Agency.

Paul Bate, CEO of 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 of generating a reliable supply of clean water.

“The Aqualunar Challenge showcases a range of innovative ideas from UK teams and individuals to tackle this challenge, while strengthening ties with our Canadian partners.

“Space exploration pushes our knowledge to its limit and spurs innovation, resulting in new products and services that can also benefit citizens on Earth. Congratulations to all the finalists who will now go on to develop their ideas further.”

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Explaining the importance of these new technologies, UK Space Agency reserve astronaut and chair of the Aqualunar Challenge judging panel, Meganne Christian, commented: “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.

“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.

“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. It is no small feat to melt the ice, separate it from the dust and other elements and make it usable.

“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 ten finalists are:

1. Lunasonic – developed by Shaun Fletcher and Dr Lukman Yusuf, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow.
2. AquaLunarPure: Supercritical Water Purification on the Moon – developed by Queen Mary University of London
3. Cyclic Volatile Extractor (CVE) – developed by Minima Design Ltd, Suffolk.
4. FRANK – Filtered Regolith Aqua Neutralisation Kit – developed by RedSpace Ltd, Aldershot/Cleethorpes/Richmond (North Yorkshire).
5. Ganymede’s Chalice: Solar Concentrator Distillation for Clean Water Production – developed by British Interplanetary Society, London.
6. I-LUNASYS: Innovative lunar water resource system – developed by Perspective Space-Tech Ltd, London.
7. Regolith Ice Plasma Purifier for Lunar Exploration (RIPPLE) – developed by Regolithix Ltd, West Yorkshire.
8. SonoChem System – developed by Naicker Scientific Ltd, Gloucestershire.
9. Static Water Extraction System (SWES) – developed by Interstellar Mapping, London.
10. Titania-Diamond Annular Reactor (TiDAR) – developed by Nascent Semiconductor Ltd, County Durham.

The ten finalist teams will be showcased at the Farnborough Air Show at 1pm on Friday 26 July in the Space Zone Theatre.