NASA’s completed ISRU Collector of Ice in a Cold Lunar Environment (ICICLE) project examined a thermal-control system for collecting and purifying water from lunar polar permanently shadowed regions through sublimation mining or regolith filtration. The project ended on March 1, 2021, and was proposed by Paragon.
ICICLE addresses an undeveloped stage of lunar ice mining: cold-trap collection and filtration. Its system would selectively freeze and capture water vapour while rejecting corrosive, toxic, and explosive contaminant gases. The design must achieve required water purity and collection rates while interfacing with extraction equipment and downstream systems, including Paragon’s planned ISRU-derived water purification and Hydrogen Oxygen Production (IHOP) subsystem. Purified water could support drinking water, breathable oxygen, and in-situ propellant production.
The Ark team should track ICICLE-derived thermal-control designs, Phase II prototype-demonstration outcomes, and compatibility standards for extraction, purification, electrolysis, storage, and cryogenic operations. Research priorities should include contaminant tolerance, cold-trap reliability, power requirements, autonomous maintenance, failure recovery, and closed-loop water accounting for multi-century lunar habitation.