ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING WITH MOLTEN LUNAR REGOLITH UNDER VACUUM CONDITIONS

The Moon offers a unique opportunity for space exploration and colonisation due to its proximity to Earth and abundance of resources. Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has shown promise as a technology for in-situ fabrication of structures and devices using local resources on the Moon. In the project EDAM-R at TU Berlin, molten lunar regolith simulant (TUBS-M mare basalt simulant) was used as a feedstock for high-temperature 3D printing under vacuum conditions. A printhead was developed to melt the lunar regolith in a vacuum environment. The printhead is a custom vertical high-temperature tube furnace containing a platinum-rhodium crucible with an orifice at the bottom through which the molten lunar regolith is extruded by the hydrostatic pressure of the melt. The melt drips onto a regolith substrate that is moved by a 3-axis traversing unit within a vacuum chamber. Previous experiments under ambient conditions have shown that the fast-cooling rates due to convection caused the printed glassy parts to crack. The slower cooling rates in the vacuum environment were expected to reduce the residual stresses on the printed parts. This paper presents the results of the first test campaigns of EDAM-R, including the system design and findings from printing the molten lunar regolith simulant under vacuum conditions. The study demonstrates the potential of using a molten lunar regolith for on-site construction on the lunar surface.