How is Architecture Supporting the Exploration of the Moon and Mars?
Table of Contents
- 1 Related Article
- 2 NASA and AI Space Factory Develop a 3D-Printed Lunar Structure
- 3 BIG and ICON Imagine Project Olympus, a Space-Based Construction System Developed with NASA
- 4 The Red Planet: Design on Our Race to Mars
- 5 AI SpaceFactory Builds 3D Printed Mars Prototype for NASA
- 6 SEArch+ and Apis Cor Win Latest NASA Competition for 3D Printed Habitats on Mars
- 7 Foster Among 30 Shortlisted in NASA-Backed Mars Habitat Competition
- 8 SOM Presents Vision of Lunar Settlements at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale
- 9 From NASA to Bouncy Houses: The Evolution of Inflatables
- 10 Clouds AO and SEArch Win NASA’s Mars Habitat Competition with 3D-Printed Ice House
- 11 UAE Announces $140 Million BIG-Designed Mars Science City
- 12 Life on the Moon, According to 8 Architects and Artists
How is Architecture Supporting the Exploration of the Moon and Mars?
From inflatable and 3D-printed structures to entire habitats, architecture plays an unprecedented role in space exploration missions. As NASA plans for long-term human exploration of the Moon and Mars under Artemis and CHAPEA missions, new technologies are required to meet the unique challenges of living and working in another world. In response, figures like Buckminster Fuller, Foster + Partners, SOM, and BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, in collaboration with emerging businesses such as ICON and SEArch+, have nourished the architectural catalog in outer space.
In the latest update, NASA awarded Austin-based company ICON a contract to continue ICON’s Olympus construction system in partnership with BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. The project will help build infrastructures such as landing pads, habitats, capsules, and roads on the lunar surface and Mars, using extrusion-based additive construction technology (3D printing) and local materials like lunar regolith. The contract runs through 2028 and supports Artemis, a mission for long-term human exploration of the Moon.
Along with Olympus, ICON will work with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center under STMD’s Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies (MMPACT) project. ICON printed a 1,700-square-foot simulated Martian habitat called Mars Dune Alpha that will be used during NASA’s Crew Health and Performance Analog or CHAPEA, an analog mission starting in 2023.
Related Article
NASA and AI Space Factory Develop a 3D Printed Lunar Structure
Discover more architectural proposals that would take humanity a step further in spacial exploration:
NASA and AI Space Factory Develop a 3D-Printed Lunar Structure
BIG and ICON Imagine Project Olympus, a Space-Based Construction System Developed with NASA
The Red Planet: Design on Our Race to Mars
AI SpaceFactory Builds 3D Printed Mars Prototype for NASA
SEArch+ and Apis Cor Win Latest NASA Competition for 3D Printed Habitats on Mars
Foster Among 30 Shortlisted in NASA-Backed Mars Habitat Competition
SOM Presents Vision of Lunar Settlements at the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale
From NASA to Bouncy Houses: The Evolution of Inflatables
Clouds AO and SEArch Win NASA’s Mars Habitat Competition with 3D-Printed Ice House
UAE Announces $140 Million BIG-Designed Mars Science City
Life on the Moon, According to 8 Architects and Artists
