A team of students in the U.S. is planning to brew beer on the moon for the first time. The team plans to send a canister aboard an Indian lunar lander that is set to launch this year.

The team, comprising engineering students of the University of California, San Diego, is among the finalists in the Lab2Moon competition being conducted by TeamIndus, which will send a spacecraft to the moon on December 28 this year as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE Challenge.

The experiment will test the viability of yeast fermentation on the surface of moon, researchers said.

Understanding how yeast behaves on the Moon is not just important for brewing beer in space, researchers said. It is also important for the development of pharmaceuticals and yeast-containing foods, like bread.

The group, which calls itself “Team Original Gravity”, is one of just 25 teams selected from a pool of 3,000 to compete for a spot aboard the TeamIndus spacecraft. “The idea started out with a few laughs among a group of friends. We all appreciate the craft of beer, and some of us own our own home-brewing kits,” said Neeki Ashari, a student at UC San Diego.

“When we heard that there was an opportunity to design an experiment that would go up on India’s Moon lander, we thought we could combine our hobby with the competition by focusing on the viability of yeast in outer space,” said Ms. Ashari. All of the preparation required before yeast is added will be done on Earth.

“Our canister is designed based on actual fermenters,” said Srivaths Kalyan, mechanical lead for the team.

“It contains three compartments — the top will be filled with the unfermented beer, the second will contain yeast,” said Mr. Kalyan. “When the rover lands on the Moon with our experiment, a valve will open between the two compartments, allowing the two to mix...When the yeast has done its job, a second valve opens and the yeast sink to the bottom, separate from fermented beer,” Mr. Kalyan said.

The experiments will be evaluated by an international jury in March when teams fly to Bangalore to showcase their prototype.

The spacecraft is owned by the Indian start-up TeamIndus, one of four teams in the world to win a $1 million Milestone Prize for successfully simulating the landing technology concept of its spacecraft. — PTI