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ESA launches the Second Space Resources Challenge

Conceptual illustration of lunar regolith extraction and beneficiation operations creating feedstock for an oxygen production factory on the Moon. Credits: Grok 2

The European Space Agency (ESA) on October 24 initiated their Second Space Resources Challenge. The Space Resources Challenge is an initiative aimed at stimulating innovation in the field of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) for lunar and potentially other planetary bodies’ development. Launched in partnership with the Luxembourg Space Agency and their joint European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC), the competition encourages participants from various backgrounds—including students, startups, and established companies—to develop technologies that can collect, process, and utilize resources on the Moon. The challenge focuses on extracting valuable resources like oxygen for human life support and rocket fuel, as well as metals for construction, from lunar regolith. By fostering a competitive environment, ESA seeks to advance technologies that could reduce the dependency on Earth-supplied materials, thereby making long-term lunar missions more economically viable. The competition not only aims to develop new ISRU technologies but also to build a community of innovators interested in the value of space resources, potentially leading to commercial opportunities in the burgeoning space economy.

Launched on October 24, the second Challenge will focus on extraction and beneficiation of lunar regolith, critical steps in establishing a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. Teams have until February 20th 2025 to submit proposals. Competition winners can claim €500K for the best performing team and will be awarded a development contract for a feasibility study. A second place prize worth €250K will be awarded to the best team in the category of beneficiation.

The first Challenge, which targeted resource prospecting, took place in 2021 and featured a competition between robotic protypes in ESA’s Lunar Utilisation and Navigation Assembly (LUNA) facility, an advanced research and simulation center designed to support Europe’s efforts in lunar exploration. Located within ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, LUNA serves as a testing ground for technologies and systems intended for lunar missions. The facility includes a moon-like environment where various aspects of lunar landing, operations, and human habitation can be simulated.

The Second Resource Challenge will focus on:

  • Extraction: The collection, hauling and handling of lunar regolith. In LUNA this will be modeled using lunar simulant, which mimics the Moon’s soil. The problem to be solved in this area of the challenge involves designing robotic systems that can collect and transport material efficiently in the harsh lunar environment.
  • Beneficiation: a term adapted from the terrestrial mining industry, is the process whereby the economic value of an ore is improved by removing the gangue minerals, resulting in a higher-grade product. In the context of ISRU on the Moon, beneficiation will convert regolith into a suitable feedstock through particle sizing and mineral enrichment, preparing it for the next step in the value chain. On the Moon the next process could be extracting valuable resources like oxygen for life support and rocket fuel, and metals for construction or manufacturing, which will be essential for sustaining a long-term human presence on the Moon.

The technology development program will award the teams with the most innovative robotic systems that exhibit autonomy, durability, efficient handling and processing of regolith in the extreme conditions of vacuum, temperature extremes and dust expected in the lunar environment.

Alignment with Strategic Roadmap:

The Second Space Resources Challenge is a pivotal part of ESA’s Space Resources Challenge strategic roadmap to build out the ISRU Value Chain. The next phase of the program will focus on “Watts on the Moon”, i.e. reliable surface power sources for lunar operations. Subsequent phases will develop ISRU applications including extraction of oxygen and water for life support and rocket fuel, with the goal of sustainable in situ factories in the 2030s providing resource supply chains for settlements and the cislunar economy. Integrated systems downstream in the Value Chain, such as Pioneer Astronautics’ (now part of Voyager Space) Moon to Mars Oxygen and Steel Technology (MMOST) application to produce oxygen and metallic iron/steel from lunar regolith, are already under development.

Space Resources Challenge strategic roadmap depicting gradual progression of ISRU development activities. Challenges are planned to be solicited every three years. Credits: ESA

The Second Space Resources Challenge competition is a critical forward-thinking step in ESA’s plans for space development. By concentrating on the extraction and beneficiation of lunar regolith, ESA is not only preparing for the logistics of long-term lunar habitation but also setting a precedent for how future space missions might operate autonomously and sustainably. This challenge underscores ESA’s commitment to innovation, sustainability, and the strategic use of space resources, paving the way for humanity’s next steps in the settlement of the Moon and other worlds in the Solar System.

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Ethos Space has ambitious plans for the Moon and beyond

Conceptual illustration of a SpaceX Starship on a lunar landing pad made from in situ materials by Ethos Space, which plans to use lunar resources for space development. Credits: Starship image: SpaceX; Lunar landing pad and landscape: Grok 2

Kevin Cannon, one of our favorite researchers on ISRU here on SSP, recently appeared on The Space Show to discuss his new position as Senior Lunar Geologist for Ethos Space, a Los Angeles based lunar infrastructure startup that just emerged from stealth last June. Near term (by 2028), the company plans to support the Artemis program by attempting to robotically building landing pads for Starship using lunar regolith, an application SSP covered last year in a ground breaking trade study. Ethos also hopes to extract oxygen from lunar regolith which makes up 80% of rocket propellant and could be a major market segment in a cislunar economy. Incidentally, a few years ago Cannon looked into where on the Moon is the best place to source oxygen.

Long term (20 – 30 years from now) Ethos hopes to use lunar materials to manufacture a sunshade commissioned by world governments that would be placed at the L1 Sun-Earth Lagrange point to combat global warming by blocking 2% of sunlight that reaches our planet. Ethos Space CEO, Ross Centers, is founder of the nonprofit Planetary Sunshade Foundation which issued a report on the state of space based radiation modification about a year ago.

Conceptual illustration of planetary sunshade fabricated from materials sourced on the Moon. Credits: Ethos Space
Diagram depicting the proposed location for a sunshade located at the L1 Sun-Earth Lagrange point (not to scale). Credits: Planetary Sunshade Foundation
Ray trace showing that the more acute umbra shadow of a sunshade would not reach Earth while the diffuse penumbra is what would cover our planet (not to scale). Credits: Planetary Sunshade Foundation

Cannon believes that a sunshade is a better geoengineering solution to cool the climate then cloud seeding with sulfur dioxide aerosols as at least one startup company, Make Sunsets, is proposing. Cannon believes this approach, which he says amounts to “using pollution to fight pollution”, will not be very popular with the general public. Make Sunsets counters this argument with an analysis available on their website showing that sulfur dioxide released high in the stratosphere is highly effective in counteracting the warming effect of carbon dioxide while dispersing to negligible levels globally reducing the chance of producing acid rain, the primary concern of sulfur releases in the lower atmosphere. In fact, a paper in Geophysical Research Letters published last August documents evidence that recent regulations on cargo ship emissions limiting sulfur pollutants may have actually contributed to global warming. In 2020 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) instituted new regulations reducing the maximum allowed sulfur emission per kg of fuel in ships by 80%. As a result, artificial clouds created by ship emissions decreased causing northern hemisphere surface temperatures to rise. This example reinforces the need to study geoengineering projects carefully to prevent unforeseen consequences. With respect to the sunshade, Cannon anticipates that international coordination will definitely be required as some countries may have farm land that would actually benefit from anticipated warming so may not want these regions shaded.

Back to the Moon: On The Space Show podcast Cannon mentioned that Ethos will be partnering with Astrolab, a Hawthorne, California based company which has already been awarded a NASA contract to develop a Lunar Terrain Vehicle for the Artemis program. Astrolab’s current concept, dubbed FLEX, is designed to carry two suited astronauts, has a robotic arm for science excavations, and can survive the extreme temperatures at the Lunar South Pole. The rover can be teleoperated remotely from Earth or driven by suited astronauts. The Ethos robotic system for fabricating lunar landing pads would be towed behind this rover while melting the regolith in place forming molten stripes over multiple passes that cool into igneous rock that would be very robust. The mechanism for how the regolith will be melted was not disclosed but if they are guided by the trade study mentioned above, microwave sintering makes the most sense.

Image of Astrolab’s FLEX rover which may tow the Ethos Space robotic system for melting lunar regolith to fabricate landing pads on the Moon. Credits: Astolab

In a post a few years ago on his blog Planetary Intelligence, Cannon makes the case that mining Luna for platinum group metals (PGM) would be more economically feasible than from near-Earth objects (NEO) because of transit times and operational difficulties due the typical NEO being an “…irregular shaped rubble pile–or basically a space sandcastle of loose dust and boulders–held weakly together by cohesion and microgravity, and spinning rapidly.” In addition, terrestrial ore grades are higher than in NEOs potentially making the economics challenging to compete with mines on Earth. The CEO of asteroid mining company Astroforge, Matt Gialich, begs to differ. He thinks there is a business case for mining NEOs and has venture capital backers that agree. Cannon actually collaborated with Gialich on a paper making the case for mining PGMs from main belt asteroids which SSP covered last year. However, the distances involved make near term profits difficult, and Astroforge is now focusing on NEO’s relatively close to Earth. Gailich also appeared on The Space Show this year and addressed the terrestrial ore grade question when I posed it to him, essentially saying that extraction of PGMs from NEOs could be economically competitive with terrestrial mines because they are so deep and have slim profit margins.

Both Ethos and Astroforge will have mission results in the next decade, although they are targeting completely different markets. Hopefully, both will succeed.