NASA’s Artemis Mission Gets a Boost with Sierra Space’s Plans to Make Oxygen on the Moon 

28th Jan 2025
NASA’s Artemis Mission Gets a Boost with Sierra Space’s Plans to Make Oxygen on the Moon 

Sierra Space has completed a testing programme for its instrument to extract oxygen from lunar regolith. The results open new possibilities for long-term lunar missions and deep space exploration.

Sierra Space and its innovative project

Sierra Space is working on a device that produces oxygen in moon-like conditions.
Sierra Space is working on a device that produces oxygen in moon-like conditions. Credit: Sierra Space

This science project was launched at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre last summer.

For the first time, oxygen was extracted from simulated lunar soil, or regolith, using an automated autonomous system under lunar-like conditions.

Sierra Space test engineers spent two weeks at the Space Centre in August working with a simulated lunar regolith in an environment the hardware recognises as similar to the water-filled region of the Moon’s south pole.

The experiment was conducted in a thermal vacuum chamber to simulate lunar pressures and temperatures. At lunar temperatures and pressures, the Sierra Space system performed all regolith processing steps and the carbothermal reduction reaction that extracts oxygen from minerals in the regolith simulation.

The company’s engineers improved the performance of their machine to solve the main problems: the abrasive texture of the regolith and lunar gravity, which interferes with the electrolysis processes of molten regolith.

testing chamber of NASA’s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
A high-powered laser and carbothermal reactor located inside the testing chamber of NASA’s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Credit: NASA/Brian Sacco

The technology is designed to mass-produce oxygen and support one of the main goals of NASA’s Artemis programme: to establish and sustain the first settlement on the Moon.

Last September, the company completed tests of its patented carbothermal oxygen reactor.

Brant White, Sierra Space Programme Manager, noted the importance of the experiment: ‘We tested everything we could on Earth. The next step is to go to the Moon.’

A Key Resource On The Moon

The first lunar base residents will need oxygen to breathe and produce rocket fuel for spacecraft that can be launched from the Moon and sent to faraway places, including Mars.

‘Our company is focused on building the infrastructure to ensure a permanent human presence on the lunar surface. This sustainable future begins with developing core technologies and systems that create oxygen in this environment using local natural resources,’ said Tom Vice, CEO of Sierra Space.

Lunar regolith is rich in metal oxides, making it a potential source of oxygen. According to scientists, an astronaut would need the amount of oxygen in about two or three kilograms of regolith per day, depending on that astronaut’s fitness and activity level.

NASA's Artemis mission plans to land astronauts on the moon in 2027.
NASA’s Artemis mission plans to land astronauts on the moon in 2027. Credit: NASA

In addition to oxygen, regolith can extract metals such as iron, titanium and lithium.

‘This could save billions of dollars in mission costs,’ Brant White noted the high cost of transporting oxygen from Earth.

How to extract oxygen from the lunar soil

Most teams worldwide are trying to follow molten regolith electrolysis, which involves using electricity to break down lunar minerals containing oxygen and extract oxygen directly.

The problem is that such technology works by creating oxygen bubbles on the surface of electrodes deep within the molten regolith itself.

Sierra Space’s technology, a hydrocarbon-thermal process, is different from that of its competitors. In their case, when oxygen-containing bubbles form in the regolith, they do so loosely rather than on the electrode surface. This means they are less likely to get stuck.

Illustration of a construction technology system on the Moon.
Illustration of a construction technology system on the Moon. Credit: ICON/BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

While promising, the Sierra Space system requires the addition of some carbon to produce oxygen. However, much of this carbon can be recycled after each cycle, making the process efficient.

Much depends on whether or not we can build reactors capable of efficiently extracting such resources.

Sierra Space is not expected to be able to test its system on the Moon until 2028 or later, using actual regolith in a low-gravity environment.

Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Related Articles

Explore Orbital Today