Architects and European Space Agency Team Up to Design 3D-printed Lunar Bases
Foster + Partners devised a weight-bearing ‘catenary’ dome design with a cellular structured wall to shield against micrometeoroids and space radiation, incorporating a pressurised inflatable to shelter astronauts.
A hollow closed-cell structure – reminiscent of bird bones – provides a good combination of strength and weight.
The UK’s Monolite supplied the D-Shape printer, with a mobile printing array of nozzles on a 6 m frame to spray a binding solution onto a sand-like building material.
"ESA is hoping that 3D printing will ease the process of establishing settlements on the Moon: “The new possibilities this work opens up can then be considered by international space agencies as part of the current development of a common exploration strategy,” said Scott Hovland of ESA’s spaceflight team.
The project is not the first time that the idea of using a 3D printer in space has been put forward: Deep Space Mining Industries, a California-based private space company which launched in January, also put forward plans for using a 3D printer to build materials taken from Near-earth asteroids.
....
The ESA have already identified a potential spot for building the structure – at the Moon’s south pole where it will be in direct line of sight of the Earth. So far however, it looks to still be in its very early stages as the space agency have yet to announce plans for when it may be built."1