China's Solar-Powered Printer Turns Moon Soil Into Construction Bricks
CHINA, AUG 8 – The solar-powered 3D printer creates strong bricks from lunar soil, reducing reliance on Earth materials and enabling sustainable lunar base construction, officials said.
- At their Hefei lab, researchers unveiled a machine that uses a parabolic reflector and fibre optic bundles to 3D-print lunar bricks from regolith without Earth materials.
- Facing Earth's intense gravity, teams struggled with the two-year development, overcoming lunar soil melting and solar transmission challenges to enable lunar construction without transport from Earth.
- The process yields dense, robust bricks for shelters, roads and platforms as concentrated sunlight reaches over 3,000 times normal intensity, heating lunar regolith above 1,300 C.
- To validate the process, Chinese astronauts aboard the nation's space station will expose simulated lunar bricks delivered by the Tianzhou 8 cargo spacecraft in November 2024, assessing durability for future lunar bases.
- Next, automated robots could build lunar surface structures, using bricks as protective shells around pressurised habitat modules to shield from radiation and meteorites.
7 Articles
7 Articles
Solar powered moon brick factory could build future lunar cities
Chinese scientists have developed a remarkable machine that could revolutionize how humans build structures on the moon. The device works like a 3D printer powered by concentrated sunlight, turning lunar soil (known as regolith) into strong construction bricks without needing any materials from Earth.
Solar Powered Moon Brick Factory Could Build Future Lunar Cities
Imagine building an entire city on the Moon using nothing but sunlight and lunar soil! Chinese scientists have made this science fiction dream a reality by creating a revolutionary machine that acts like a solar powered 3D printer, melting lunar soil at temperatures exceeding 1,300°C to create strong construction bricks. This technology could transform space exploration by eliminating the need to transport heavy building materials from Earth, ma…
This Machine Turns Moon Dust Into Bricks And Paves The Way For Cities On The Moon
Chinese scientists have unveiled a solar-powered 3D printing device that transforms lunar regolith into durable bricks, potentially changing how humans will build on the Moon. The breakthrough, detailed in Acta Astronautica, showcases a method for creating construction materials entirely from Moon dust without importing resources from Earth. How the Device Works The system, developed at the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) in Hefei, Anhu…
Scientists at the Deep Space Research Laboratory in Hefei recently unveiled an innovative machine that produces bricks directly from lunar soil - without the need for additives or materials brought from Earth. The machine works by concentrating the sun's rays using a parabolic mirror and transmitting the energy in fiber-optic beams that reach temperatures of over 1,400 degrees Celsius. At these heat pressures, the lunar soil becomes a solid and …
Lunar Bricks: Solar Energy Transforms Lunar Dust Moon Race: China innovates to build with lunar dust – Urgent News... The post Lunar Bricks: Solar Energy Transforms Lunar Dust appeared first on World News.
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 67% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium