In order to produce the oxygen necessary for future space missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) plans to source locally by recovering oxygen from the lunar regolith, this fine dust present on the surface of the moon, reports the ESA website.
Presented on January 17, this project was the subject of a study published in January in the journal Planetary and Space Science . "A thick layer of regolith covers the entire lunar surface, making it a guaranteed raw material for resource extraction," say the study authors. In total, 40 to 45% of the mass of the regolith would be composed of oxygen.
ESA's objective is to exploit the regolith in 2025, an ore from which water and oxygen can be extracted to envisage a sustainable human presence on the Moon, and produce the fuel necessary for more distant exploration missions. ..
To be continued 🤓 pic.twitter.com/ipUs67miSY
A process based on electrolysis
In space, oxygen is also used as fuel for vessels. According to the scientists, benefiting from a local oxygen supply would be "essential for viable and long-term activities in space".
Work is in progress at the European Center for Space Technology (ESTEC), a center attached to ESA located in Noordwijk (Netherlands). A dummy lunar regolith has been recreated to simulate experiments with oxygen extraction by electrolysis. This process consists of breaking down water into dioxygen and dihydrogen using an electric current. "The final oxygen content of the product shows that almost all of the oxygen (96%) has been eliminated," say the researchers.
The European Space Agency is now working on the design of a “pilot plant” for oxygen extraction, capable of operating on the Moon. The first tests are expected by the middle of the decade.
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