Water on the moon: the Aqualunar Challenge
The Aqualunar Challenge was a £1.2 million international prize funded by the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund and delivered by Challenge Works – part of Nesta. Its aim was to drive the development of innovative technologies for use on the Moon to purify water frozen as ice in the soil around the lunar south pole to make human habitation viable.
If the lunar ice can be successfully extracted, separated from the soil and purified, it would make NASA’s goal of establishing a permanent, crewed Moon base by the end of the decade viable. The Artemis campaign, as the newest big mission to the Moon is known, is supported by the UK Space Agency through its membership of the European Space Agency.
After a competitive judging process, in March 2025 SonoChem System by Naicker Scientific, led by Lolan Naicker, was named as the winner. The technology uses microwaves to defrost and ultrasound to break down contaminants in melted lunar ice to provide clean, drinkable water for astronauts.
SonoChem System was announced as the winner by UK Space Agency’s reserve astronaut Meganne Christian at a ceremony in Canada House in London’s Trafalgar Square, where the team was awarded the £150,000 first prize, which will be used to develop the technology further.
The Aqualunar Challenge was a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and Impact Canada, with half the prize being awarded to UK-led teams, and half being awarded to Canadian-led teams.
Our Approach
Seven was tasked with raising awareness of the challenge among potential entrants, while also communicating the work of the UK Space Agency to excite a broad national audience in an accessible way at each of the key prize milestones: launch, finalists announcement and winner announcement.
The Results
The Aqualunar Challenge secured 500+ pieces of coverage with an online reach of 7.3B translating to 22.3M estimated coverage views. It secured a print circulation of 1.21M, a TV audience of 500K, a radio audience of 97K, 31.5K YouTube views and 302K views of coverage on social media.
Launch Phase
The launch phase focused predominantly on trade titles in the space, water, engineering and chemical engineering sectors to reach potential applicants, including coverage on Space.com, Tech Times, Water Magazine, Orbital Today and Electronics Weekly. Prize spokesperson, UK reserve astronaut Meganne Christian, was interviewed by the popular Angry Astronaut YouTube channel.
Finalist and Winner Announcements
In July 2024, The Guardian published an article about the finalists of the Aqualunar Challenge. Down the line, we leveraged our relationship with The Guardian to offer an exclusive interview with the winner of the Aqualunar Challenge, Lolan Naicker, ahead of the winner ceremony.
The finalist announcement also saw coverage in The Daily Star and BBC newsround, BBC Radio plus top tier space trades, including Space.com. The announcement generated international coverage across Europe and Asia.
Space news influencer and YouTuber, The Angry Astronaut (194k subscribers) interviewed Meganne Christian at the launch of the challenge, the finalist teams when they were announced, and reported from the winner event too, including interviews with the winners, runners up, Meganne Christian and Challenge Works’ Oli Usher.
For the winner announcement, the exclusive Guardian interview was complemented by widespread coverage across other nationals, including The Mirror, The Independent and The i Paper, a live interview with Lolan Naicker on Sky News Business Live, and coverage in space, tech, and innovation trades.
Finally, we worked with BBC Sky at Night to showcase the new series of the programme on the One Show, where presenter and scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock celebrated the news of the Aqualunar winners in her round-up of big space developments while the series had been off air.