SPACE RESOURCES CHALLENGE

European Space Agency

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Launch date: October 24, 2024

Prize: Up to €750,000

Are you familiar with Excavation & Beneficiation technologies? Then this challenge is for you!

Learn more about the call for proposal here

What is the Space Resources Challenge?

The Space Resources Challenge is an initiative launched by ESA & ESRIC in 2021 to promote challenge-driven innovation, engaging the community to explore innovative solutions for Europe’s exploration programme. The Challenge encourages industry and research institutions to compete for a prize, supporting the development of advanced methods for prospecting, extracting and utilising space resources. On top of driving innovation, the Challenge can help kickstart new commercial endeavours, contributing to the creation of a vibrant Space Resources market involving actors from the European industry.

The Space Resources Challenge can help:

  • Foster Innovation by stimulating creativity to approach complex problems and fill critical gaps along the value chain via the support of breakthrough innovations;
  • Encourage Collaboration by inspiring international collaboration between academia, industry and research organisations to advance Space Resources;
  • Accelerate Technology Advancement by offering a comprehensive approach to advancing current technology readiness levels and informing ESA & ESRIC on viable technologies;
  • Build a community by fostering community engagement and sparking broader public interest in Space Resources while promoting how In Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) can offer a more sustainable way to space exploration and long-term human presence beyond Earth;
  • Send payload by acting as an innovative approach to send more ISRU missions to space alongside traditionally procured payloads.

Space Resources Challenge's Strategic Roadmap

Following the success of the first challenge, ESA & ESRIC launched a new campaign on OSIP in April 2023 to collect inputs from the community to Identify themes for future challenges along the ISRU value chain.

Using the selected ideas, a strategic roadmap for the Space Resources Challenge was developed, with the aim of launching a challenge every three years:

What is In-Situ Resources Utilisation (ISRU) ?

In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) refers to the use of local resources, using specific hardware and operations, to produce goods and services that support both robotic and human exploration, as well as the continued presence in space.

Space resources are critical for sustainable space exploration, enabling us to reduce the costs and risks associated with transporting resources from Earth to space. The Moon is a particularly promising target for resource extraction, given its proximity to Earth and the abundance of resources available.

But what Resources are we talking about?

On the Moon, a wealth of resources can be exploited for ISRU purposes. These include regolith, which can be processed to extract silicon, and metals like iron and aluminium. Water ice, found in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles, is particularly valuable as it can be converted into drinking water, breathable oxygen, and hydrogen for rocket fuel.