Japanese and Israeli startups recently agreed to cooperate on an experimental project to generate oxygen on the moon, a potential technology that could make possible long-term lunar missions independent of Earth in the future.
Under the project, Israel's Helios Project Ltd. will undertake demonstration tests to extract oxygen by melting lunar soil at a high temperature and electrolyzing it. Japan's Ispace Inc. will deliver equipment for the experiments twice between 2023 and 2025.
"We are very excited by their technology and we believe this effort will stimulate more players to enter this market," Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said at a ceremony to sign memoranda of understanding held at the Japanese Embassy in Tel Aviv last month, which he joined online from Tokyo.