Ahead of the Artemis human missions, NASA is looking for environmentally sustainable solutions for waste management during long-duration missions to the Moon. Launched as part of the space agency’s Centennial Challenges Program, the LunaRecycle initiative aims to encourage the development of innovative waste recycling solutions for use on the lunar surface and in closed lunar habitats.

The program’s goal is to reduce the amount of solid waste generated during long-term lunar missions and increase the sustainability of future space exploration. As NASA prepares for future human space missions, the agency is studying how to minimize various types of waste, as well as how to store and process waste in space so that little or no waste is returned to Earth.

With so many private and public missions to the Moon, some scientists suggest that humanity is entering a new “lunar Anthropocene,” a period in which humans begin to alter the Moon. Previous human missions to the Moon have left landing modules, flags, scientific experiments, golf balls, and even human feces on its surface.

NASA aims to reduce astronaut impact on the moon with its new LunaRecycle program. Establishing a long-term presence on the lunar surface would require moving large amounts of cargo from Earth to the moon, necessitating reuse and recycling to minimize degradation of the lunar environment.

NASA aims to combat the recycling shortage with its LunaRecycle program. The assignment will focus on approaches to recycling materials that are currently difficult to recycle. The initiative could highlight new approaches to waste recycling, energy and water-saving processes that reduce unusable waste and toxic emissions, and smaller-scale solutions that can be implemented in communities in a more decentralized manner than existing waste processing operations today.

The LunaRecycle Challenge will feature two competitive tracks: the “digital twin” and the creation of a prototype. The “digital twin” track requires participants to develop a virtual model of a system capable of processing one or more types of solid waste on the lunar surface and producing one or more end products. The prototyping track focuses on the design and development of real equipment capable of processing solid waste on the lunar surface.

The total funding amount for the LunaRecycle Challenge is $3,000,000, of which $1,000,000 is for the prototype development phase, with the remaining funds allocated for the solution development phase. Project evaluation will begin in May 2025, after which the winners and the rules of the next phase will be announced.