Additive manufacturing of lunar regolith for reconfigurable building blocks toward lunar habitation

Abstract

Utilizing locally available materials is a crucial step towards sustainable planetary habitation. Lunar regolith has gained tremendous interest in additive manufacturing in the past decades. However, due to the constrained manufacturing facilities and materials on the moon, many existing additive manufacturing methods are not suitable for practical on-site manufacturing. Here, we envision that light-based direct sintering of lunar regolith without a binder can be a feasible approach. Instead of directly manufacturing large structures, we hypothesize that small-scale, reconfigurable building blocks can be an alternative form to construct large and complex structures. To verify the feasibility, we conducted laser sintering of lunar regolith simulants as a proof of concept. Different laser processing parameters were investigated for both individual sintered layers and thicker, multi-layer parts to obtain controllable lunar regolith sintering in three dimensions. We further designed Lego-like interlocking bricks that are reconfigurable for different structure assemblies without additional joining material. Compressive strength and porosity of sintered cubic blocks were evaluated, showing a peak strength of about 3.4 MPa. We hope this work will inspire other in-space manufacturing techniques and enable low-cost space habitation.