Most 3D printers utilise filament or resin to manufacture tiny items that may be used in maker projects, replacement components, or attempts to figure out what a 3,000-year-old mummy sounds like. According to reports, NASA intends to ditch such components with moon rocks. NASA states that a spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS) just this week was delivering some very essential terrestrial cargo — a 3D regolith printer that utilizes moon dust to produce solid materials.
The Redwire Regolith Print (RRP) project will explore 3D printing regolith in combination with an existing ISS printer technology, ManD. According to ISS Research’s official Twitter account, the findings may assist to assess the viability of regolith as raw material and 3D printing as a technology for building future space missions.
https://twitter.com/ISS_Research/status/1425139780107505670
The major goal of the print operations is to show the manufacturing process capabilities in microgravity, according to NASA. “The print operations’ secondary goal is to create material samples for scientific examination," their statement read. Even though 3D printing in microgravity is problematic, the agency claims that utilising regolith as a 3D printing material might have advantages on Earth.
NASA believes such technology may someday be utilised to create dwellings, landing pads, and other structures for future exploration missions, utilising on-site materials, rather than bringing all of the raw components for such construction. That’s all there is to it in terms of space. In terms of terrestrial life, the agency stated that the ability to employ on-site materials may help with the “building of infrastructure to improve quality of life in distant and underdeveloped areas, as well as on-site emergency construction during natural disaster response."
If the experiments are successful, RRP may enable astronauts to print a part of soil-based habitats as needed, thereby reducing the amount of building equipment NASA would need to transport to the Moon and Mars on future trips. The space agency has stated that it intends to investigate the possibility of 3D printing homes on Mars.
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