NASA’s Artemis program, designed to return humans to the moon, goes far beyond the ever-later SLS launch. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration also plans to establish a lunar base to carry out related research tasks. They can also use material that will relieve them of a headache: 3D printed moon dust bricks.
Designed for NASA and developed by a team from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Central Florida, these blocks consist, among others, of lunar regolith, the name given to the small rocks and dust that accumulate on the Moon’s surface. It is also used inkjet bonding technology (BJT). This is a technique that involves mixing a liquid component, such as salt water, with moon dust to create a sufficiently uniform layer that can later be shaped into bricks using a 3D printer.
“BJT is especially suitable for ceramic materials that are difficult to fuse with a laser. Therefore, it has great potential for extraterrestrial production based on regolith in a sustainable way to produce building parts, components and structures.”
Ranajay Ghosh, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCF stands out.
Moon bricks must be exposed to temperatures over 1000 degrees.
However, these bricks have a small drawback: they are too weak. To increase the resistance NASA would have to subject them to a baking process at temperatures up to 1200 degrees Celsius.. When this process is completed, the 3D-printed moonstone bricks can withstand pressures up to 250 million times Earth’s atmosphere.
Using these bricks could help NASA avoid tedious transfers of material from Earth to the Moon. Transportation, which, while possible via shuttles, can make building a base much longer. It can also be useful for building bases on other planets.
“The more we develop methods that exploit the abundance of regoliths, the more opportunities we will have to establish and expand base camps on the Moon, Mars and other planets in the future.”
Gateway and other NASA plans under the Artemis program
NASA also has another project under the Artemis program: a future launch leavea lunar space station that, as the administration itself commented, “will help scientists understand how to plan for the unpredictable space weather created by the Sun and galactic cosmic rays.”
This station will also consist of three main instruments. On the one hand, HERMES (Heliophysical Environmental and Radiation Measurement Suite) developed by NASA. On the other hand, ERSA, or the European Radiation Sensor Array, and the Internal Dosimeter Array (IDA), which are the result of ESA’s work. All of them will allow scientists to study space weather and thereby know more precisely the risks that radiation will entail.
Getaway is expected to release in 2024. thanks to SLS, a NASA megarocket whose launch continues to be delayed due to numerous technical problems. One of them, curiously, is due to a sensor that incorrectly measured the temperature of the engine. It is expected, yes, that in November it will take off for the first time.
Source: Hiper Textual
