ISRU Collector of Ice in a Cold Lunar Environment (ICICLE)

Water mined from extraterrestrial sources, such as lunar craters, will contain impurities that are both difficult to separate from water and detrimental to many possible downstream processes and users of the water. The ICICLE component is a cold trap that utilizes a regulated freeze distillation process along with optimized internal geometry for high water collection efficiency and low contaminant retention from upstream water extraction sources. ICICLE provides one-step collection and coarse purification of extracted water in environments including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, making it an essential component in any water-based ISRU architecture.