Using resources found in space to build off-world structures can drastically reduce the need to transport building materials for programs like Artemis. As part of NASA’s Artemis program to establish a long-term presence on the moon, it aims to establish an Artemis base camp that will include a modern lunar cabin, rover and camper. This solid habitat could potentially be built using bricks of lunar regolith and saltwater, thanks to a recent discovery by a team of UCF researchers.
Associate Professor Ranajay Ghosh of UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and his research group found that 3D-printed lunar regolith bricks can withstand the extreme environments of space and are a good candidate for cosmic building projects. Lunar regolith is the loose dust, rocks, and materials that cover the lunar surface.
To create the bricks, Ghosh’s team at the Complex Structures and Mechanics of Solids (COSMOS) Lab used a combination of 3D printing and binder jet technology (BJT), an additive manufacturing method that involves forcing a liquid binder onto a bed of powder. In Ghosh’s experiments, the binder was salt water and the powder was regolith, made by UCF’s Exolith Lab.
“BJT is uniquely suited to ceramic-like materials that are difficult to melt with a laser,” says Ghosh. “Therefore, it has great potential for regolith-based alien manufacturing in a sustainable way to produce parts, components, and engineering structures.”
The BJT process resulted in weak cylindrical bricks called green parts, which were then fired at high temperatures to create a stronger structure. Bricks fired at lower temperatures crumbled, but those exposed to heat of up to 1200 degrees Celsius could withstand pressures up to 250 million times that of Earth’s atmosphere.
According to Ghosh, the work paves a way for using BJT in the design of materials and structures in space. Their findings also show that off-world structures can be built using resources from space, which can drastically reduce the need to transport building materials for missions like Artemis.
“This research contributes to the ongoing debate in the space exploration community to find the balance between the use of extraterrestrial resources on site and the material transported from Earth,” says Ghosh. “As we continue to develop techniques that take advantage of the abundance of regolith, we will have more opportunities to establish and expand base camps on the Moon, Mars and other planets in the future.”
The first author of the work is Peter Warren, Ghosh research associate. Co-authors include mechanical engineering PhD student Nandhini Raju, mechanical engineering graduate Hossein Ebrahimi ’21PhD, mechanical engineering PhD student Milos Krsmanovic, and aerospace engineering professors Seetha Raghavan and Jayanta Kapat.
Ghosh joined UCF in 2016 as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is a researcher at MAE’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research. He leads the Complex Structures and Mechanics of Solids Laboratory, better known as COSMOS Lab, where he and his team use computer modeling and experimentation to fabricate and design novel materials. He received his PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University in 2010 and is a recipient of the US National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
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Materials provided by University of Central Florida. Originally written by Marisa Ramiccio. Note: Content can be edited for style and length.
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