Since that infrastructure will undoubtedly use in-situ resources—known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU)—developing test beds here on Earth for those ISRU processes is critical to derisking the technologies before they're used on a mission.

That's the plan for a test bed designed by researchers at the German Aerospace Center in Bremen—they designed it to improve how well we gather water and oxygen from lunar regolith. Unfortunately, as their work described in a recent paper published in Frontiers in Space Technologies demonstrates, it will be a challenge to do so.

Water and oxygen are two critical components of any long-term lunar exploration plan.