Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

European Large Logistics Lander, EL3.
Credit: ESA/ATG-Medialab

The European Space Agency (ESA) has chosen a consortium, led by Thales Alenia Space in the UK, to design and fabricate an experimental payload to extract oxygen from the surface of the Moon.

Following a competition, the winning consortium has been tasked with producing equipment that will evaluate the prospect of building larger lunar plants to extract propellant for spacecraft and breathable air for astronauts – as well as metallic raw materials.

Extracting oxygen

This ultra-compact, low power unit will need to extract 50-100 grams of oxygen from lunar regolith – targeting 70% extraction of all available oxygen within the sample – while delivering precision measurements of performance and gas concentrations.

An artist impression of Lunar Lander collecting a sample on the Moon.
Credit: ESA

Additionally, the hardware must be able to fly on a range of potential lunar landers – including ESA’s own European Large Logistics Lander, EL3.

Once on the Moon, the miniature processing plant would work for a 10-day period before the pitch-dark, freezing lunar night sets in.

The EL3 enables a series of proposed ESA missions to the Moon that could be configured for different operations such as cargo delivery, returning samples from the Moon or prospecting resources found on the lunar surface.