Airbus Aerospace and Defense signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Mexican Space Agency, and the Mexican startup Dereum Labs for collaborative research on the technologies needed for lunar resources extraction.

The creation of MoU is a strategic step in developing an in-situ resource utilization program for resource extraction on the Moon, according to the Airbus statement on September 24, 2021.  

The eventual goal of the program is to contribute to a sustainable presence of humankind on the Moon by enabling using local resources like regolith, to extract oxygen and metal, or to mine water. In turn, this would eliminate the need to be sending these resources from Earth.

“This agreement represents the first step in a fruitful collaboration with Mexico in space activities,” stated Victor de la Vela, the Head of Airbus in Latin America & the Caribbean, in the statement. “Being able to extract and process lunar resources is essential to sustain long-term living on the moon.”

“At Dereum Labs, we envision and work for an interplanetary economy; in a few years, the industries that today are not related to space will be doing business on the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” said Carlos Mariscal, the CEO of Dereum Labs. “With this agreement, the Mexican Space Agency, Airbus Defence, and Space and Dereum Labs are taking together a huge step towards that future.”