Developing technologies to extract and utilize metals and oxygen from martian and lunar soil, providing fuel and construction materials for future space missions.
Created: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2022-10-21
Company - Helios
Service
- Classification
- Space Resources
- Category
- Resources - Oxygen
Resources - Metal
- Fields
- Raw Materials
- Status
- 3) Development
- First launch
- 2025
Process is called Molten Regolith Electrolysis – melting the lunar regolith (soil) and electrolyzing it to separate the vast amount of oxygen from the various metals that constitute the regolith.
The Israeli company Helios, which develops technology for extracting oxygen from the lunar soil, signed the first Israeli-Japanese agreement for technological cooperation on July 19. Helios, with the support of the Israel Space Agency in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, will be integrated into the mission to the moon of the Japanese company ispace. As part of the mission, the Israeli company will conduct a demonstration of technology for extracting oxygen and metal from the lunar regolith.
Deliver Helios technology to produce oxygen and metals on the moon aboard the lunar landing system LSAS (Lunar Surface Access Service).
The LSAS (Lunar Surface Access Service) landing system relies on the design of the Israeli lunar lander Beresheet, co-developed by the SpaceIL organization and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which embarked on a failed landing mission in 2019 and is set for a second attempt in three years. IAI and OHB joined forces two years ago to develop the LSAS for global commercial customers.
Based in Germany, OHB manages and coordinates the LSAS project — from the selection of the payloads, to their integration on the moon lander, to the mission launch — as well as individual missions to the moon. As part of the new agreement, Helios’ tech will fly on the first three LSAS missions to the lunar surface starting in 2025.
Two space tech companies, Helios and Eta Space, announce in 2022 that they are joining forces to solve the problem of oxygen in space. If humanity is to have a sustainable presence beyond Earth, the reusable methane-fueled rocket systems need liquid oxygen at a ratio of 1:4, so the only cost-effective solution to refueling in orbit is to create and store oxygen on the Moon and on Mars. "Eta Space would play the important role of liquifying and storing the oxygen produced by the Helios reactor in cryogenic tanks."
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