A team of engineers is making significant strides in space innovation with the development of a revolutionary machine designed to produce oxygen directly on the Moon. This ambitious project, taking place in a massive vacuum sphere at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, pushes the boundaries of current space technology and aims to create a life-sustaining system for lunar missions.
The device, a silvery metal contraption adorned with colorful wires, marks a major step forward in enabling long-term lunar exploration and habitat construction. According to Brant White, program manager at Sierra Space, a private aerospace company, “We’ve tested everything we can on Earth now. The next step is going to the moon.” This project is part of a broader initiative to develop systems that can extract essential resources from the Moon’s surface, providing astronauts with the oxygen and materials necessary for survival and deep-space exploration.
The experiment centers around feeding simulated lunar regolith—dusty, sharp, and gritty soil—into a specialized machine. When the regolith is heated to over 1,650°C, it transforms into a molten material. The addition of reactants causes oxygen-containing molecules to bubble out. This process, known as carbothermal reduction, holds promise for extracting oxygen from the Moon’s regolith. Lunar regolith is rich in metal oxides, making it a potential source of oxygen, but replicating Earth-based extraction techniques on the Moon presents a unique set of challenges.
“We’ve had to improve how the machine works to handle the jagged, abrasive texture of the regolith,” explained White. The tests were conducted in a vacuum chamber to simulate lunar pressures and temperatures, but the challenge of working with the Moon’s low gravity—about one-sixth of Earth’s—remains a key hurdle.
The issue of low gravity is particularly problematic for oxygen extraction. Paul Burke, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, emphasized the difficulty this presents for molten regolith electrolysis, another method of extracting oxygen. “In low gravity, the oxygen bubbles don’t rise as quickly, which could delay their detachment from the electrodes,” he said. This could hinder the efficiency of the process, making it more difficult to extract oxygen at a sustainable rate.
Despite these challenges, the potential rewards of successful oxygen-extraction technologies are immense. Lunar oxygen could not only support astronauts but also serve as an oxidizer for rocket fuel, making it possible to refuel spacecraft on the Moon and enabling missions to Mars and beyond. As White pointed out, this technology could save billions of dollars in mission costs, as transporting oxygen from Earth is currently prohibitively expensive.
In addition to oxygen, lunar regolith holds the potential for extracting valuable metals like iron, titanium, and lithium. These materials could be used for building structures, creating tools, and manufacturing components for further space exploration. For example, MIT Ph.D. student Palak Patel has developed a molten regolith electrolysis system that addresses the low-gravity issue by using a sonicator to dislodge oxygen bubbles more effectively. “We’re really looking at it from the standpoint of minimizing the number of resupply missions,” Patel explained.
Patel’s research also explores the possibility of melting regolith into a tough, glass-like material that could be formed into hollow bricks for construction on the Moon. These bricks could serve as building materials for lunar habitats, or even be 3D-printed into spare parts or replacement components for spacecraft.
While Sierra Space’s system requires the addition of some carbon to produce oxygen, the good news is that most of this carbon can be recycled after each cycle, making the process more efficient and sustainable over time. The ability to produce oxygen on the Moon would dramatically reduce the reliance on Earth-based supplies and open up new possibilities for building long-term, self-sustaining lunar habitats.
With further development, these systems could significantly reduce the cost and complexity of human space exploration, enabling more ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. By overcoming the challenges of lunar resource extraction, engineers and scientists are paving the way for a new era of space exploration where the Moon could serve as a crucial stepping stone for humanity’s future in space.
By Impact Lab