Low-Energy Additive Construction for the Moon and Mars

The technology presented in this proposal has the capability of providing surface stabilization for landing pads, and a low-energy solution to build roads and other early components of infrastructure that are needed to kickstart a functional lunar or Martian base. The proposed innovation is a novel binder chemistry for the formation of a high-strength, heat-tolerant, regolith-binder composite material, suitable for lunar surface and Martian surface construction, notably landing pads, as well as hardware for mixing and production of the binder material. This binder is unique because it requires no energy input to cure and can be sourced from 100% in-situ sources on the moon and mars but with the option for immediate demonstration testing using terrestrially sourced, low mass-fraction binder. The fully in-situ sourcing option for the material would significantly reduce the cost of deploying a base camp on the surface of the Moon or Mars. Along with the above benefits of this specific landing pad technology/chemistry, the proposed hardware to be developed in this phase II effort will be compatible with state-of-the-art thermoset and thermoplastic binders for regolith, allowing it to deploy and validate a wide portfolio of lunar landing pad technologies on any future demonstration mission. The proposed innovation is a novel binder chemistry for the formation of a high-strength, heat-tolerant, regolith-binder composite material, suitable for lunar surface and Martian surface construction, notably landing pads, as well as hardware for mixing and production of the binder material. This binder is unique because it requires no energy input to cure and can be sourced from 100% in-situ sources on the moon and mars but with the option for immediate demonstration testing using terrestrially sourced, low mass-fraction binder. The fully in-situ sourcing option for the material would significantly reduce the cost of deploying a base camp on the surface of the Moon or Mars. Along with the above benefits of this specific landing pad technology/chemistry, the proposed hardware to be developed in this phase II effort will be compatible with state-of-the-art thermoset and thermoplastic binders for regolith, allowing it to deploy and validate a wide portfolio of lunar landing pad technologies on any future demonstration mission. Technical objectives Develop detailed requirements for the pad material mixing and production subsystem, driven by the identified needs of the larger system, and independent of a specific physical system architecture Include requirements for compatibility with state-of-the-art thermoset and thermoplastic bound regolith composite production Optimize binder to regolith mass ratio to minimize lunar and Martian down-mass Define a physical system which meets the defined requirements Develop and test fast-fail prototypes of the defined system and iterate on the design to quickly develop an optimized system. Finalize system design output from iterative design/testing cycles and subject final design to relevant environment testing in order to exit TRL 6. Proposed deliverables Final Unit: A Regolith-binder mixing and production unit, testing in dirty thermal vacuum conditions, and delivered to NASA KSC for further testing and evaluation. Kickoff meeting between the internal project team and the NASA team. Milestone technical reports corresponding to each of the roughly quarterly milestones outlined in the schedule. Final report summarizing the results of the entire effort, including discussion of future commercialization efforts and conclusions on the technical capabilities of the system.
Benefits: This technology enables NASA’s goal of near-term and frequent landings on the lunar surface under the Artemis program while mitigating risk to surface and orbital assets and personnel. The low energy usage and wide terrestrial availability of the low mass-fraction binder allows for near-term deployment of this material as a landing pad, while the in-situ sourcing opportunity and flexibility of the deployment hardware make the technology valuable for supporting a sustained lunar presence and for spearheading future Martian missions. This low energy, heat tolerant, in-situ derived construction solution is compelling for a number of prospective lunar and Martian infrastructure companies. This may include companies like Masten Space Systems or SpaceX, but also orbital groups like OrbitFab or Axiom who may expand to surface operations. In this competitive space, few are willing to commit before demonstration missions.