This activity aims at early technology development of a water storage system for lunar life support and exploration, in support of the advancement of ESA's space exploration strategy. The proposed water container stores water in liquid state down to temperatures as low as -120 °C using a passive unfreezing method—lipid mesophase water storing system—discovered by a group of physicists and chemists at the Laboratory of Food and Soft Materials, ETH Zürich and University of Zurich. The Global Exploration Roadmap expects human missions to the lunar surface in around 2030. Among local resources, in order of timeline and likelihood of possible implementation, propellant and life support consumables such as water and oxygen are in higher priorities. Water is considered a bi-product of propellant production and it is essential for sustained and sustainable human presence on the Moon. The water extracted from ice in lunar poles or produced from lunar materials shall remain in liquid phase for the use of humans on Moon. The intended technology is a simple water container—thermally protected to maintain within specified allowable temperature—filled with the synthesized lipids which hosts the water. The main differentiating features of this technology are that (1) it does not require any supply of energy for maintaining water in the permanent liquid state; and (2) it is Off-Earth manufacturable—the water containers can be 3D printed or built through in-situ additive manufacturing processes using local materials. The lipids can be carried to the Moon as a peripheral payload e.g. on board of the European Large Logistics Lander (EL3) which is aimed to deploy cargo supplies and instrumentation at the lunar surface by the later 2020s. In this two-stage Early Technology Development activity, subsystem components will be modelled, analysed and selected (Phase A) and then the prototype of the water storage system will be developed and evaluated up to TRL 3 (Phase B).
