![]() ![]() And for another, it’s not as if NASA has mounds of real moon dust and rocks to experiment with-just samples from the Apollo 16 mission. For one thing, since future Artemis missions will be near the Moon’s south pole, the regolith could contain ice. One of the challenges the team faces now is how to make the lunar regolith into a building material strong enough and durable enough to protect human life. To keep astronauts out of harm’s way, Edmunson says the goal is to make construction as autonomous as possible, but she adds, “I can’t rule out the use of humans to maintain and repair our full-scale equipment in the future.” Advertisement How to assemble finished pieces is still being decided. The material can then be printed into desired shapes. Then it must cool to allow gases to escape failure to do so can leave the material riddled with holes like a sponge. The first step toward 3D printing on the Moon will involve using lasers or microwaves to melt regolith, says MMPACT team lead Jennifer Edmunson. Subsequent missions will focus on using semiautonomous excavators and other machines to build living quarters, roads, greenhouses, power plants, and blast shields that will surround rocket launch pads. For that mission, a robotic arm with an excavator, which will be attached to the side of a lunar lander, will sort and stack regolith, says principal investigator Corky Clinton. The team’s first off-planet project is tentatively scheduled for late 2027. To avoid the high cost of shipping material from Earth, which would require massive rockets and fuel expenditures, that means using the regolith that’s already there, turning it into a paste that can be 3D printed into thin layers or different shapes. But the MMPACT team is preparing for the construction of sustainable, long-lasting structures. When humanity returns to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program, astronauts will first live in places like an orbiting space station, on a lunar lander, or in inflatable surface habitats. But it’s also the first structure built for a NASA mission by the Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) team, which is preparing now for the first construction projects on a planetary body beyond Earth. The 1,700-square-foot space, which is the color of Martian soil, was designed by architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and 3D printed by Icon Technology.Įxperiments inside the structure will focus on the physical and behavioral health challenges people will encounter during long-term residencies in space. Made of a slurry that-before it dried-looked like neatly laid lines of soft-serve ice cream, Mars Dune Alpha has crew quarters, shared living space, and dedicated areas for administering medical care and growing food. It takes 29.53 days for the Moon to orbit the Earth and go through the lunar cycle of all 8 Moon phases.In June a four-person crew will enter a hangar at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and spend one year inside a 3D-printed building. This refers to how many days it has been since the last New Moon. The illumination is constantly changing and can vary up to 10% a day. ![]() This is the percentage of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. The Waxing Gibbous on June 3 has an illumination of 99%. Visit the June 2023 Moon Phases Calendar to see all the daily moon phase for this month. The word Gibbous first appeared in the 14th century and has its roots in the Latin word "gibbosus" meaning humpbacked. During a Waxing Gibbous the moon rises in the east in mid-afternoon and is high in the eastern sky at sunset. The phase lasts about 7 days with the moon becoming more illuminated each day until the Full Moon. This phase is when the moon is more than 50% illuminated but not yet a Full Moon. Visible through most of the night sky setting a few hours before sunrise. The Moon's current phase for today and tonight is a Waxing Gibbous phase.
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