We make oxygen from moon dirt! We're working to eventually become the gas station of the solar system by supplying a broad range of mission-critical resources to realize our mission of enabling the permanent presence of humans on the moon and beyond.

We think humanity is ready to go back to space and stay there for good this time. As an increasing number of highly capable deep space-heavy launch platforms such as SpaceX's Starship, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), and Blue Origin's New Glenn, near operational readiness, the next step to becoming a space civilization is ensuring that explorers have a means to stay. Within the next decade, NASA aims to have a permanent lunar base, and Aster aims to be a part of making that dream a reality.

Mini-GRU, or Miniature Gas Refinement Unit, is our custom In-Situ Resource Utilization oxygen production reactor. Mini-GRU will produce ~0.05 grams of oxygen per second, enough to sustain up to 4 astronauts at a time!

It's a common misconception that oxygen can be recycled by simply using a CO2 scrubber, but a CO2 scrubber only removes CO2 from the air, it doesn't recycle the oxygen. The actual process of recycling oxygen requires enormous amounts of energy. So much energy in fact that NASA has opted to replenish the oxygen supplies on the International Space Station (ISS) by bringing water for electrolysis and also refilling high-pressure air tanks with air for the crew.

95% of lunar landings have occurred in or near the equatorial regions, areas characterized by a scarcity of water-ice. Aster's strategy for utilizing lunar regolith ensures that astronauts can generate oxygen regardless of their landing location. Moreover, adopting the water-ice method to produce enough oxygen for one person for a day on the moon would necessitate processing over two dump truck loads of ice-containing regolith. In contrast, Aster's approach only requires an equivalent regolith volume to a small watermelon to be processed. Regolith: A blanket of unconsolidated, loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock. It consists of dust, broken rocks, and other related materials. It is present on Earth, the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and other terrestrial planets and moons.