NASA awards $57 million to company to develop lunar construction technology

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NASA has been hard at work on its Artemis mission, with which they hope to mark a new milestone by putting man back on the moon.

The most recent thing done by the agency regarding this project has been the contracting of the services of a company named ICON, established in Texas, who have been asked to develop solutions that allow this agency building critical infrastructure on the Moonsuch as landing pads, roads, and habitats.

All this has been agreed between both parties through a contract of $57.2 millionwhich will be in force until 2028.

Regarding Artemis, NASA wishes to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon and make this an outpost to travel to other destinations, specifically Mars.

Through a statement, the director of technological maturation of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, Niki Werkheiser, expressed the following:

To explore other worlds, we need innovative new technologies tailored to those environments and our exploration needs.

When delving into the contract awarded to ICON, it has been based on the company’s Olympus project, which refers to a conceptual system of construction designed to be carried out in space from the resources available on the Moon and Mars.

ICON was already recognized for its 3D earth construction technologies, of which the construction of the first 3D printed houses in the United States stands out.

As part of its collaboration with NASA, ICON has carried out the 3D construction of an analogous Martian habitat, which has been given the name of Mars Dune Alphaand which has a dimension of 157 square meters.

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ICON’s intention with this project is have the minimum amount of construction material, so that NASA does not have the need to transport heavy loads to the Moon or Mars.

This complex will be used by the space agency to carry out the training of its astronauts, a process that will begin next year.

In addition, it was announced that ICON will make use of the Lunar regolith samples brought back during the Apollo missions to develop construction technologies requested by NASA.

In addition to this, the company will carry out a Lunar gravity simulation flight using its hardware and software.