Israeli startup Project Helios (Helios) is set to hitch a ride on Japan-based lunar exploration company ispace’s lunar lander during its second and third missions to the Moon’s surface.
Helios is intended to be a technological demonstration to showcase in-situ oxygen and metal production on the moon, eventually becoming a way to “live off the land” beyond Earth.
In an April press release, the company stated that funding had been awarded from the Israeli Space Agency and the Israeli Energy Ministry to develop technology to be launched in two separate space missions over the next three years.
The company states that one of the main roadblocks in paving a way for humanity to expand beyond Earth is the “extraordinary cost” of sending anything from the Earth to the Moon. As oxygen is one of the most essential materials to be used in lunar space, the ability to produce the gas on the moon is one way to make a moon colony an economically viable reality.
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