NASA awards $57.2m to Texas biz for 3D printing Moon base • The Register

NASA granted $57.2 million to ICON, a 3D-printing company from Texas, in order to create “space-based constructions systems” on Moon surface.

NASA plans to create infrastructure to allow astronauts to live on the Moon. To be able to grow and communicate with Earth via the Solar System, they will need tools made from lunar materials.

Project Olympus. ICON is tasked to build a machine capable of 3D printing large structures like blast shields, landing pads and roads on Mars. Nearly $60 million will be spent on the contract over six years to support ICON’s research into how to construct the Olympus building system, and to use in situ materials to the Moon. 

Jason Ballard is ICON’s founder and CEO. He stated that to change the paradigm of space exploration from “there and back again” to “there to stay”, we need resilient, robust and broad-capable systems that can utilize the resources of the Moon, other planetary bodies, in a statement. This contract’s final product will mark humanity’s first building on an other world. That is going be quite a special achievement.

ICON’s Vulcan is already a 3D printer for home use. It can be used to print the components needed to build houses in Mexico or the US. Olympus will however be more difficult to construct. ICON must mix lunar regolith 3D-printing materials. The system also needs to work in lunar gravity.

Niki Werkheiser is the director of technology maturation at NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. She stated that “in order to explore other planets, we require innovative new technologies that are adapted to these environments and our exploration requirements.” This development will be pushed forward by our commercial partners to create the capability we require for future missions.

Items printed by Olympus must be able to withstand extreme temperatures and radiation, as well as being protected from collisions with microscopic meteorites and radiation. ICON will test hardware and software using a lunar gravity flight. ICON will also experiment with lunar regolith samples from past Apollo missions in order to understand their mechanical properties. 

Olympus will test one of the creations it made for NASA. ICON 3D printed Mars Dune Alpha. This 1,700 square-foot simulated Martian environment will be used by NASA in the Crew Health and Performance Analog mission (CHAPEA). Astronauts will live inside Mars Dune Alpha and conduct mock spacewalks mimicking working conditions on Mars, whilst staying on Earth inside ​​NASA’s Johnson Space Center. ®