A Chinese research team has developed a "lunar brick-making machine" that can produce bricks from lunar soil, bringing the science fiction vision of "building a house on the Moon with local materials" closer to reality.
The in-situ 3D printing system for lunar soil , developed by China's Deep Space Exploration Lab (DSEL) based in Hefei, east China, uses concentrated solar energy to melt and shape lunar soil, Science and Technology Daily .
Making bricks on the Moon
According to Yang Honglun, a senior engineer at DSEL, the lunar brick-making machine uses parabolic reflectors to concentrate solar energy.
This concentrated energy is then transmitted through a fiber-optic beam. At the end of this beam, the solar energy concentration can exceed 3,000 times normal intensity. A high-precision optical system then focuses this concentrated sunlight into a small spot, heating it to over 1,300 degrees Celsius, melting the lunar soil.
The bricks produced by this machine are made entirely from in-situ lunar soil resources without any additional additives. Furthermore, these lunar soil bricks have high strength and density, making them suitable not only for building construction but also for infrastructure needs such as equipment platforms and road surfaces.
From conceptual design to prototype development, the research team spent about two years figuring out how to address future technical challenges, such as efficient energy transmission and lunar soil transportation.
For example, the mineral composition of lunar soil varies significantly across different regions of the Moon. To ensure the machine could adapt to different types of lunar soil, researchers developed several simulated lunar soil samples and conducted extensive testing on them before finalizing the design.
