Researchers at the national-level Deep Space Exploration Laboratory in Hefei, Anhui Province, have created a 3D printing system that uses lunar soil sourced directly from the Moon to construct habitats. This research aims to enable on-site building of lunar research stations, reducing reliance on materials transported from Earth.
“This printing breakthrough has validated the feasibility of using lunar soil as the sole raw building material, enabling true in-situ resource utilization and eliminating the need to transport any additional materials from Earth,” said Yang Honglun, senior engineer at the laboratory.
Experimental System and Technology
Yang explained that the system uses a high-precision reflective concentrator combined with flexible fiber-optic energy transmission to generate the intense heat required to fuse lunar regolith. The technology also incorporates flexible manufacturing capabilities, allowing it to produce standard bricks and custom-mold complex structures.
Ground-based tests have confirmed the prototype’s capability to melt and form lines, surfaces, solid bodies, and complex shapes from lunar soil simulant. Additionally, comprehensive technical evaluations of the solar concentration, fiber-optic energy delivery, and regolith melting mechanisms have been successfully completed.
The researchers explained that initial technical challenges included achieving reliable solar energy concentration and shaping the regolith under conditions mimicking the lunar environment. A multidisciplinary team comprising experts in planetary science, materials science, mechanical engineering, energy dynamics, thermal physics, and optics worked together to solve these challenges related to energy capture, transmission, and material processing.
Future Applications and Impact
Looking forward, the prototype could enable the fabrication of lunar infrastructure such as roads, equipment platforms, and buildings. This contributes to the broader objective of sustainable, large-scale exploration of the Moon and the use of local resources. It also showcases technologies for harnessing lunar energy and extracting materials, potentially laying the groundwork for future lunar energy infrastructure.
Constructing Space Habitats Using Native Planetary Soil
In addition to the efforts of China’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are advancing a synthetic lichen system designed to enable autonomous construction on Mars. Led by Dr. Congrui Grace Jin, the project utilizes the Red Planet’s native soil to create building materials without the need for human intervention. Funded by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, this research tackles the challenge of constructing habitats millions of miles from Earth, where transporting construction supplies is costly and logistically difficult.
In 2017, NASA also collaborated with the University of Central Florida (UCF) in order to find a way of 3D printing structures on Mars. The researchers concluded that Martian soil could be processed into a chamber which would be heated to approximately 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1648°C) to produce oxygen and molten metal.
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Featured image shows Yang Honglun, a senior engineer at the Deep Space Exploration. Laboratory. Photo via China SCIO.
