Nikki Corporation (” JGC “) and Yokogawa Electric Corporation announced the signing of an agreement on November 15 for the two parties to jointly develop a control system to support ultra-remote communications required for the operation of a lunar surface factory.

Many countries are already engaged in activities to explore and develop the moon. For example, 32 countries including Japan (as of December 4, 2023) are cooperating on the Artemis project, a manned lunar exploration program led by the United States. In addition, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is considering the concept of a class of factories that would use water resources on the moon to produce hydrogen and oxygen for use by spacecraft and manned facilities. Considering the possibility of such a plant being built on the surface of the moon, JGC and Yokogawa decided to use their technology and experience in ground plant operation, remote monitoring and control to develop the core underlying technology for control systems that support extremely long communication distances.

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The system will be located at a ground station and integrate communications, process control and operational monitoring for the lunar surface factory, and its construction will need to take into account constraints such as communication delays between the Earth and the Moon. The joint development will leverage JGC’s expertise in energy plant control/operation and knowledge gained through Moon Plant research, as well as Yokogawa Electric’s remote monitoring and control technology. The two companies plan to quickly begin designing and building experimental equipment that can simulate these delays, and then complete the study by the end of 2024 to find the best solution for a control system that can handle ultra-remote communications.

The joint development project will also examine whether such systems can be used in factories and other facilities on Earth. The core of the control system (the controller that performs the control logic) is separated from the equipment installed in the plant, and these plant facilities can be controlled remotely, giving the plant owner greater flexibility in production planning and simplifying plant maintenance tasks.

The JGC is actively involved in lunar development activities. In April 2021, the company entered into an agreement with JAXA to jointly conduct concept studies for a plant to produce propellant on the lunar surface, and in November 2021 joined the ongoing lunar development project under the Japanese government’s Stardust program.

Yokogawa has positioned space as a new business area to be explored, and in July 2021 set up a dedicated organization to conduct space business. In July 2023, Yokogawa Electric and JAXA began a proof-of-concept study on a water supply network monitoring solution using ALOS-2 satellite data. In addition, Yokogawa is exploring a wide range of business opportunities around the use of space infrastructure in its existing operations.