Aqualunar Challenge Semi‑Finalists Announced
Aqualunar Challenge Semi‑Finalists Announced
Eight Organizations to Receive Funding from the Canadian Space Agency
Eight Canadian organizations will begin developing solutions to purify Moon water as part of the next stage of the Aqualunar Challenge. Each semi-finalist will receive a grant of $22,500 to develop the key components of their prototypes. In turn, their technology, first intended for space missions, could also help advance water purification on Earth.
As with space exploration projects, international collaboration is key to the Aqualunar Challenge. In Canada, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) delivers the competition in collaboration with the Privy Council Office's Impact Canada, while the United Kingdom Space Agency and Challenge Works run a similar competition in parallel for United Kingdom organizations.
The winners include:
Canadian Space Mining Corporation, Toronto, Ontario: LunaPure - A sustainable system to purify lunar water from the lunar polar regions
Sixpenny Architectural Fabrication, Toronto, Ontario: Lunarwell
778 Labs Vancouver, British Columbia: VDO Lunar Water Purification System
University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta: Pure Water from Lunar Ice - Advancing Water Purification in Space
WaterPuris Waterloo, Ontario: Extracting and Purifying Water from Lunar Regolith - Innovating with Cold Trap and Vapour Membrane Distillation in an Autonomous Multi-Stage System
Cimbus Inc., Toronto, Ontario: The Lunar Ice Water and Resource Recovery System (LIWARS)
Lotic Technologies Inc., Leduc, Alberta: Electro-Catalytic Advanced Oxidation Process (EC-AOP) for Lunar Water Purification
McGill Advanced bio-Regenerative Toolkit for Long Excursion Trips (MARTLET)/McGill University Montreal, Quebec: Polar Utilization for Future Industry Needs (PUFFIN)