3D Printing Technologies Pave the Way for Moon and Mars Construction

Los Angeles CA (SPX) May 14, 2025
NASA is pushing the boundaries of construction technology to support long-term human exploration of the Moon and Mars. By focusing on in-situ resource utilization, the agency aims to reduce the need for costly Earth-based supplies. The Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) project, funded by NASA's Game Changing Development program and managed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is leading this charge. It explores using robotic 3D printing to construct essential infrastructure from locally available materials, potentially reducing the mass and cost of launches.

MMPACT's approach uses simulated lunar and Martian regolith as the primary building material, mixed with binders like water that could also be extracted on-site. These composite materials, suitable for structures like habitats, landing pads, and radiation shields, have been a focus of NASA's research for decades. Early work included collaborations with Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis at the University of Southern California, who pioneered the Contour Crafting technique under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. This approach extrudes molten regolith and a binding agent to create large-scale, monolithic structures layer by layer.

Khoshnevis has also advanced another 3D printing method, selective separation sintering, which uses heat and pressure to produce small-scale, precise objects like interlocking tiles and replacement parts. This process can operate in both planetary gravity and the microgravity of space stations, providing critical flexibility for space missions.

Meanwhile, ICON, an Austin-based company and participant in NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge, is applying these space-based techniques to terrestrial housing. In 2021, ICON constructed a 1,700 square-foot Mars habitat prototype, known as Mars Dune Alpha, at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. This habitat includes crew quarters, workstations, and common areas, and serves as part of NASA's ongoing Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog program, which will run through 2026.

ICON is also developing the Olympus construction system, designed to use local Moon and Mars resources for building materials. This system uses a method called Laser Vitreous Multi-material Transformation, which employs high-powered lasers to melt regolith into strong, ceramic-like structures. The company further explored the gravity-dependent properties of simulated lunar regolith in a February 2025 test aboard a Blue Origin suborbital rocket, comparing its behavior to actual lunar soil collected during the Apollo program.

As NASA continues to refine these technologies, the goal remains clear: enable a sustainable human presence on other worlds while also transforming construction here on Earth.