Building technology for exploration of the moon and Mars

One of the keys to sustainable human existence in a faraway world is the use of local or in situ resources, including building materials for infrastructure such as habitat, radiation shielding, road and rocket launch and landing mats. NASA's Space Technology Mission Agency is leveraging its portfolio of programs and industries to develop site, resource capabilities to help future Moon and Mars explorers build what they need. These technologies have made exciting advances in space applications and certain impacts on Earth.

Funded by NASA's Game Change Development Program, the MOON PLANETARY Autonomous Building Technology (MMPACT) project managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama is exploring the use of large-scale robotic 3D printing technology in architecture on other planets. It sounds like something like science fiction, but the demonstration using simulated lunar and Martian surface materials, called Regolith, suggests that this concept could become a reality.

With its partners in industry and academic institutions, MMPACT is developing processing technologies for building materials on the moon and Mars. Adhesives for these materials, including water, can be extracted from local rocks to reduce emission mass. These concretes are used as the rock itself as aggregate or particulate material. NASA has evaluated these materials for decades, initially associated with large-scale 3D printing pioneer Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, Ph.D., professor of civil, environmental and aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Khoshnevis has developed technology for large-scale alien 3D printing under NASA's innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) program. One of these processes is the contour process, where molten rock and binder are extruded from the nozzles to create the infrastructure layer by layer. This process can be used to independently build the overall structure, such as radiation shielding and rocket landing pads.

Khoshnevis continues to work with the NIAC program and has also developed a 3D printing method called selective separation sintering, in which heat and pressure are applied to the powder layer to produce metal, ceramic or composite objects that may produce small-scale, more specialized hardware. This energy-saving technology can be used on planetary surfaces as well as microgravity environments such as space stations to produce items including interlocking tiles and replacement parts.

While NASA's efforts ultimately aim to develop technologies that can build sustainable human existence in other worlds, Khoshnevis also brought his eyes closer. He founded a company called Contour Crafting Corporation, which will use 3D printing technology proposed by NIAC funds to manufacture housing and other infrastructure on the planet.

Another partner of NASA is another partner of ICON in Austin, Texas, using 3D printing technology on the planet with robots, software and advanced materials.

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Construction was completed on a 3D printed 1,700 square foot habitat that will simulate the challenge of Mars at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The habitat will be home to four brave crew members for a year-long crew health and performance simulation or Chapea Mission. The first of the three missions begins in the summer of 2023.

The icon company is one of the participants in NASA's 3D-printed Habitat Challenge, which aims to advance the technology needed to build housing in an alien environment. In 2021, Icon used its large 3D printing system to build a 1,700-square-foot simulated Mars habitat that includes crew dormitories, workstations, and common lounges and food preparation areas. This habitat prototype, called Mars Dune Alpha, is part of NASA's ongoing crew health and performance exploration simulations, a series of MARS Surface Mission simulations scheduled for 2026 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Supported by NASA's Small Business Innovation Research Program, Icon has also developed the Olympus Construction System, which aims to use local resources on the Moon and Mars as building materials.

The icon company uses a robotic 3D printing technology called laser vitreous multi-matter conversion, where high-power laser melts local surface material or Regolith and then solidifies to form a strong ceramic-like structure. Rocks can be converted similarly to create infrastructure that can withstand environmental hazards such as corrosive moon dust as well as radiation and extreme temperatures.

The company also characterized the gravity-dependent properties of the simulated Lunar Regolith in an experiment called "Duneflow" that flew to the Blue Origin reusable suborbital rocket system through NASA's Flight Opportunity Program in February 2025. During this flight test on the Apollo mission.

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