Using resources found in space to build off-world structures can dramatically reduce the need to transport construction materials for programs like Artemis.
ORLANDO, October 25, 2022 – As part of NASA’s Artemis program to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, it aims to build an Artemis Base Camp that will include a modern lunar cabin, a rover and a mobile home. Such a fixed habitat could potentially be built from bricks made from 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 bricks of lunar regolith can withstand the extreme environments of space and are a good candidate for projects of cosmic construction. Lunar regolith is the loose dust, rocks, and materials that cover the surface of the moon.
The results of their experiments are detailed in a recent issue of Ceramics International and were also presented in New Scientist magazine ahead of publication.
“It is always an honor to be able to publish our work in a prestigious journal like Ceramics International, and we are very pleased that New Scientist has chosen our research to publish in their journal,” says Ghosh. “Given UCF’s special place as a space-granting university, we feel privileged to contribute to the great tradition of scientific knowledge.”
To create the bricks, Ghosh’s team at the Laboratory for Complex Structures and Mechanics of Solids (COSMOS) used a combination of 3D printing and binder jet technology (BJT), an additive manufacturing method that forces an liquid binder to a powder bed. In Ghosh’s experiments, the binding agent was salt water and the dust was regolith made by UCF’s Exolith lab.
“BJT is particularly suitable for ceramic-like materials that are difficult to melt with a laser,” says Ghosh. “Therefore, it has great potential for regolith-based extraterrestrial manufacturing in a sustainable way to produce parts, components and building structures.”
The BJT process resulted in weak cylindrical bricks called green parts that were then fired at high temperatures to produce a stronger structure. Bricks fired at lower temperatures crumbled, but those exposed to heat of up to 1200 degrees Celsius were able to withstand a pressure of up to 250 million times the Earth’s atmosphere.
Ghosh says the work paves the way for using BJTs in building materials and structures in space. Their findings also demonstrate that off-world structures can be built using resources found in space, which can dramatically reduce the need to transport construction materials for missions like Artemis.
“This research contributes to the ongoing debate in the space exploration community about finding the balance between using extraterrestrial resources in situ and material transported from Earth,” says Ghosh. “The more we develop techniques that use the abundance of regolith, the more we will have the ability to establish and expand base camps on the Moon, Mars and other planets in the future.”
The paper’s first author is Peter Warren, Ghosh’s graduate research assistant. Co-authors include mechanical engineering PhD candidate Nandhini Raju, mechanical engineering alumnus Hossein Ebrahimi ’21 PhD, 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 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and is a researcher in MAE’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research. He directs the Laboratory of Complex Structures and Solid Mechanics, better known as the COSMOS Lab, where he and his team manufacture and design new materials with the help of computer models and experiments. He received his PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Cornell University in 2010 and is a recipient of the CAREER Award from the US National Science Foundation.
Writer: Marisa Ramiccio, University of Central Florida
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