JGC Holdings Corporation is pleased to announce that overseas EPC operating company JGC Corporation was selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in competitive bidding for conceptual design and breadboard development/testing of a terrestrial pilot plant for a future lunar ISRU plant¹ on November 6, 2024.

With the pace of global efforts toward lunar development accelerating, as shown by the U.S. Artemis program, JAXA's 2021 draft of the Japan scenario for international space exploration² envisions several milestones in preparation for the use of water resources on the lunar surface. Within this decade, the agency's plans include a conceptual study of an entire lunar ISRU system, a study of the essential technologies, and verification on Earth. The 2030s will see the start of preliminary plant construction site surveys (geotechnical investigation and measurement) and lunar demonstration plant construction, followed by full-scale plant operation by 2040. Bids for the current project were solicited by JAXA in September of this year.

JGC Corporation will mainly be conducting the following two tasks and presenting the results to JAXA by March 31, 2025.

1. Conceptual design of a pilot plant on Earth

Study of pilot plant details such as system requirements, system specifications, and development plans; study of the terrestrial testing environment

2. 2. Breadboard development/testing and other work related to water extraction

Identification of technical issues in water extraction; study of subsequent demonstration plans

Experiments involving water extraction from hydrous lunar soil (regolith)

The JGC Group has been involved in plant and facility EPC in many fields from energy to social and industrial infrastructure for more than 90 years since its founding. The Group has completed more than 20,000 projects in deserts, jungles, the far north, offshore, and other environments. Microgravity environments as found on space stations are another area of JGC expertise, and from the 1980s to the early 2000s the Group's space business included providing services for these environments as well as related safety and quality assurance analysis.

JGC Corporation has taken the initiative in studying space business since 2018, leading to the formation of the Lunar Plant Unit in December 2020 to study prospects for establishing lunar plants that supply hydrogen as a fuel. In June 2021 JGC Corporation concluded a cooperative agreement with JAXA on the conceptual study of a lunar ISRU plant. Over roughly the next two years, a conceptual study of a lunar ISRU plant using lunar water resources was conducted and the required technological elements and research agendas were identified, in addition to studying an R&D plan. The Group was also selected for a JAXA project in December 2023 on the conceptual study of a pilot plant intended to enable a lunar ISRU plant,³ which was then conducted along with demonstration planning. JGC Corporation will build on past studies in this work, applying engineering technologies, project execution capabilities, and other expertise and experience to support sustainable human activity in space through this project.

1: A facility to extract water from lunar soil (regolith) and produce liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen for use as fuel for manned lunar landers and excursion vehicles

2: URL (in Japanese): https://www.exploration.jaxa.jp/assets/img/news/pdf/scenario/2021/Scenario2021.pdf

3: JGC Holdings FY2023 press release: JGC Selected for the JAXA Project "Conceptual Study of a Pilot Plant toward the Realization of a Lunar ISRU Plant"

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