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Politecnico di Milano
Department of Mechanical Engineering

3D printing and moon dust: the astronaut's kit for future space exploration?

Some of the most challenging frontiers in Additive Manufacturing lie today on moon explorations and its potentials for advancements in research: MeccPolimi, in collaboration with the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology and within a major collaborative project with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and European Space Agency (ESA), has developed a prototype system for 3D printing of a lunar regolith simulant (NU-LHT-2M), that is to say “lunar powder”. The 3D printer prototype shows the capability to print on site, using local resources, thus reducing the elevated supply chain costs.

Additive manufacturing or 3D printing systems, infact, may allow the realisation of components when required, employing locally available resources and through a direct conversion from the digital CAD geometry to the final object. 3D printing can thus enable the manufacturing of lightweight structures, with improved performance (heat exchange, impact resistance, etc.) and greater reliability due to significant reductions in the number of components.

The research was coordinated by Prof. Bianca Maria Colosimo, Deputy Head at MeccPolimi, with the collaboration of a team of our Department dedicated to the development of the laser 3D printer, led by Prof. Barbara Previtali with the support of Dr. Ali Gökhan Demir, PhD candidate Leonardo Caprio and Eligio Grossi, who developed the prototype 3D laser beam printer. A team from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology composed by Prof. Michéle Lavagna, Prof. Giuseppe Sala and Lorenzo Abbondanti-Sitta contributed by providing the lunar dust simulant, cooperating during the various experimental campaigns and conducting materials characterization of the final products.

The research demonstrated that lunar powder or regolith could be 3D printed through the optimisation of processing conditions and laser parameters. Following the research’s positive results, it was possible to define guidelines for the design of a future 3D printing system for use in space.

The full study is available here.