When you imagine the moon, you don’t immediately think of oxygen. There is a material there that could be crucial for the future of space travel. A team from Bremen is setting standards in the mining of regolith.
How moon dust becomes oxygen: New processes and robotics show how lunar missions could use resources directly on site in the future.
Foto: DFKI, Jimmy Dao Sheng Liu
Regolith mining in the test: Team Bremen sets standards
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In the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Resources Challenge 2025, robots were supposed to mine lunar soil, transport it and prepare it for later oxygen production. The Bremen team (Beneficiation of Regolith and Mobile Excavation) provided a particularly convincing solution.
The heart of the approach is the mobile rover Coyote III, which released large amounts of lunar dust simulant from the ground, picked it up and transported it safely to the stationary sorting unit. There, a specially designed rotating sieve separated the material into different grain sizes.
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In front of the DFKI’s artificial lunar crater: The successful BREMEN team and its winning system of the ESA Space Resources Challenge 2025.
Foto: DFKI, Jimmy Dao Sheng Liu
Dr. Mehmed Yüksel from DFKI emphasizes the importance of autonomous robotics for the future of lunar research: “Our rover ‘Coyote III’ has proven under extreme conditions that it has the necessary reliability, endurance and autonomy to play a key role in future ISRU missions.”
Prize money for a further training concept
The competition also included the development of a technical development concept. Team Bremen showed how its modular system can be integrated into future ISRU missions and which improvements would pave the way to a real lunar infrastructure.
The team beat international competition and is now receiving 500,000 euros to further develop its technology.
What is behind regolith
Regolith is the loose surface material on celestial bodies such as the moon. It consists of fine dust, small grains and broken rock particles formed by meteorite impacts over billions of years. This “moon dust” covers the entire soil of the celestial body and contains important mineral oxides – and therefore also bound oxygen.
The fine-grained regolith runs like dry sand between your fingertips.
Photo: Alexandra Ilina
It is precisely this oxygen that researchers want to make use of in the future. Because if you want to stay on the moon longer, you need air to breathe and fuel for return flights. Both could theoretically be obtained directly from regolith.
Preparing regolith is difficult
Before the oxygen can be extracted, the raw material must first be collected and sorted. This task poses particular challenges for space travel because regolith is extremely fine, sticks electrostatically and can put a lot of strain on mechanical systems.
This is precisely why systems are needed that are not only robust but also precise enough to handle this demanding material. This is exactly where this year’s ESA Space Resources Challenge comes in.
The combination of outstanding performance in the test field and a future-oriented development concept ultimately brought the Bremen team overall victory.
Oxygen production on the moon is more than just an idea
NASA researchers were able to demonstrate in 2023 that oxygen can actually be extracted from regolith.
Under lunar conditions, they demonstrated how the so-called “carbothermal reduction” works: In this process – which is also used to extract silicon from quartz or to reduce iron ore – the lunar regolith is heated strongly together with a reducing agent. The oxygen compounds dissolve in the material and carbon monoxide is formed. This gas can then be further broken down in an electrolysis process to produce pure oxygen.
At the same time, European research groups investigated processes such as molten salt electrolysis. The regolith is placed in a salt bath and subjected to electricity, which allows the individual elements to be separated. In theory, high oxygen yields are possible and usable metal residues are also created.
Tests under realistic conditions
The Space Resources Challenge took place at the LUNA facility in Cologne. A replica of the lunar soil in which lighting conditions, ground and surroundings are simulated as realistically as possible.
More about the LUNA system on VDI news: Luna: The moon on earth – in a laboratory in Cologne
“Working in space research is very challenging because the conditions in space are truly unique. Tests like those in the LUNA Moon Center make the work tangible and extremely motivating,” says Niklas Spielbauer, research associate at the FZI.