Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

NASA sets water challenge to aid crewed missions to the moon and Mars

By

Humans are returning to the moon in the near future, and we could be on our way to Mars before too long, as well.

But for missions aimed at creating bases where we can stay for extended periods of time, we need a way to harvest any available water for drinking, growing plants, or making rocket fuel.

Recommended Videos

With this in mind, NASA is launching a new challenge for university-level engineering students to design and build hardware capable of identifying, mapping, and drilling through various subsurface layers before extracting water from a block of ice in a simulated testbed.

NASA says there could be “hundreds of millions of tons of ice” in the shadows of our moon’s South Pole, though noted that it will likely need plenty of processing before it can be used.

“The water we’ll find when the next men and first women explore the lunar surface for the Artemis program is liable to be mixed with contaminants that need to be removed before drinking, or use as fuel,” Douglas Terrier, NASA chief technologist, said on the space agency’s website. “Learning how to safely and efficiently prospect for and harvest water is key for sustainable human exploration — not only on the moon, but also on Mars and at other far reaches of our solar system.”

Student teams keen to get involved need to submit a project plan showing their proposed concept design and operations by November 24, 2020. The organizers will then hand up to 10 teams a $10,000 development stipend to go toward building and testing their technology in the first half of 2021. They’ll then show off their designs during a three-day contest at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in June. The best teams will be invited to present their designs at a future NASA-chosen event.

NASA has been inviting engineering students to take part in similar projects annually since 2017 as it prepares for crewed missions to the moon, Mars, and possibly beyond.

Dr. Prasun Desai, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said the Artemis program is “inspiring the brightest minds in academia,” adding, “It is important for us to provide those talented students with unique, hands-on opportunities to contribute to the future of human space exploration. We look forward to seeing their technological breakthroughs as they progress through the competition.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
NASA gives green light to mission to send car-sized drone to Saturn moon
An artist's impression of NASA's Dragonfly drone.

NASA’s Mars helicopter mission is now well and truly over, but following in its footsteps is an even more complex flying machine that's heading for Saturn’s largest moon.

The space agency on Tuesday gave the green light to the Dragonfly drone mission to Titan. The announcement means the design of the eight-rotor aircraft can now move toward completion, followed by construction and a testing regime to confirm the operability of the machine and its science instruments.

Read more
NASA needs a new approach for its challenging Mars Sample Return mission
An illustration of NASA's Sample Return Lander shows it tossing a rocket in the air like a toy from the surface of Mars.

NASA has shared an update on its beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission, admitting that its previous plan was too ambitious and announcing that it will now be looking for new ideas to make the mission happen. The idea is to send a mission to collect samples from the surface of Mars and return them to Earth for study. It's been a long-term goal of planetary science researchers, but one that is proving costly and difficult to put into practice.

The Perseverance rover has already collected and sealed a number of samples of Mars rock as it journeys around the Jezero Crater, and has left these samples in a sample cache ready to be collected.  However, getting them back to Earth in the previous plan required sending a vehicle to Mars, getting it to land on the surface, sending out another rover to collect the samples and bring them back, launching a rocket from the planet's surface (something which has never been done before), and then having this rocket rendezvous with another spacecraft to carry them back to Earth. That level of complexity was just too much to be feasible within a reasonable budget, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced this week.

Read more
These 3 companies are developing NASA’s new moon vehicle
An artist’s concept design of NASA’s Lunar Terrain Vehicle.

NASA has big plans for the moon -- not only sending people back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years but also having them investigate the exciting south pole region, where water is thought to be available. The plan is not just for astronauts to visit for a day or two, but to have them stay on the moon for weeks at a time, exploring the surrounding area. And to explore, they can't just travel on foot -- they'll need a new moon buggy.

Today, Wednesday, April 3, NASA announced the three companies developing its new lunar vehicle: Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab. They'll each develop a lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) that can carry astronauts from their landing site across the moon's surface, allowing them to range further and reach more areas of interest.

Read more