Construction technology for Moon and Mars Exploration

One of the keys to a lasting human presence on distant worlds is to use local or in situ resources that include building materials for infrastructure such as habitats, radiation shielding, roads and launch of rockets and landing pads. The NASA spatial technology mission management takes advantage of its industry programs and opportunities portfolio to develop in situ resources to help future Moon and Mars explorers to build what they need. These technologies have made exciting progress for space applications as well as certain impacts here on Earth.

The Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) project, funded by the NASA development program, and managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center of the agency in Huntsville, in Alabama, explores the applications of large -scale 3D 3D printing technology for construction on other planets. It looks like the fabric of science fiction, but demonstrations using lunar surface and simulated surface material, known as Regolith, show that the concept could become reality.

With its partners in industrial and university establishments, MMPACT develops treatment technologies for lunar and Martian building materials. The binders of these materials, including water, could be extracted from the local regolith to reduce the launch mass. The regolith itself is used as aggregate or granular material, for these concretes. NASA has been asking for these materials for decades, initially working with a large -scale 3D printing pioneer, Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, professor of civil, environmental and astronautics at the University of South California in Los Angeles.

Khoshnevis has developed techniques for large -scale extraterrestrial 3D printing as part of the NASA innovative advanced concept program (Niac). One of these processes is the outline crafts, in which the melting regolith and a liaison agent are extruded from a nozzle to create a layer of infrastructure per layer. The process can be used to build monolithic structures as well as radiation shielding and rocket landing pads.

Continuing to work with the Niac program, Khoshnevis has also developed a 3D printing method called selective separation sintering, in which heat and pressure are applied to layers of powder to produce metallic, ceramic or composite objects that could produce small and more precise equipment. This energy efficient technique can be used on planetary surfaces as well as in microgravity environments such as space stations to produce items, including locking tiles and replacement parts.

While NASA’s efforts are ultimately aimed at developing technologies capable of strengthening a lasting human presence on other worlds, Khoshnevis is also close to his home. He created a company called CRAFTING CORPORATION COURTOUR which will use advanced 3D printing techniques with NIAC funding to make accommodation and other infrastructure here on Earth.

Another partner of NASA in additive manufacturing, Austin icon, Texas, does the same, using 3D printing techniques for the construction of houses on earth, with robotics, software and advanced materials.

The icons company was one of the participants in NASA 3D printed habitatwhich aimed to advance the technology necessary to build housing in extraterrestrial environments. In 2021, ICON used its large -scale 3D printing system to build a simulated Martian habitat of 1,700 square feet which includes crew districts, workstations and areas of preparation for salons and common food. This prototype of the habitat, called Mars Dune Alpha, is part of NASA Crew Health and Performance Exploration AnalogA series of Mars surface Mission simulations scheduled until 2026 at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

With the support of the NASA Small Business Innovation Research Program, ICON also develops an Olympus construction system, designed to use local resources on the Moon and Mars as a building materials.

The icons company uses a robotic 3D 3D printing technique called laser glass multi-material transformation, in which high power lasers melt local surface materials, or regoliths, which then solidify to form solid ceramic structures. The regolith can also be transformed to create infrastructure capable of resisting environmental risks such as corrosive lunar dust, as well as extreme radiation and temperatures.

The company also characterizes the properties dependent on the severity of the lunar regolith simulated in an experience called Duneflow, which stole aboard a system of suborbital rockets that are originally reusable through the program of NASA flight opportunities in February 2025. During that flight testThe vehicle simulated the lunar gravity for about two minutes, allowing NASA icons and researchers to compare the behavior of the simulating against the real regolith obtained from the moon during an Apollo mission.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-Directorate/