Sustainable space exploration requires the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technologies, which encompass all processes that utilize local resources to generate useful products for robotic and human exploration. Among the available resources, water is the most versatile and most needed in space exploration. Water can be directly used as consumable for astronauts or electrolyzed to hydrogen and oxygen, a very effective rocket propellant combination. However, in-situ water extraction is challenging and the required technologies are not yet fully developed. The proposed LUWEX project foresees the development and validation of a complete in-situ water process chain including water extraction, purification and quality monitoring. An integrated test setup will be built to validate the operational capabilities of these technologies and also of the whole process chain. This setup will deliver a relatively realistic environment analogue to the lunar surface and will use a lunar dust-ice simulant to provide proper validation conditions to raise the TRL of all subsystems and the whole process chain to level 4. The interdisciplinary nature of LUWEX combines research and innovation in space engineering, space science and exploration, geophysics and terrestrial water systems. Large space industry (Thales Alenia Space Italia), research organizations (DLR), SMEs (Liquifer Systems Group, Scanway) and academia (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology) from four European countries (Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland) join forces in a unique consortium to enable breakthroughs in ISRU technologies. LUWEX will help to strengthen the excellence in European space science and exploration and also foster the competitiveness of the European space sector.