NASA Award $57.2 Million Contract To Icon To 3D Print Moon Base. Large-scale 3D printing firm ICON, a leader in advanced construction technologies, have received a $57.2 million contract to use their technology to help build a base and roads on the Moon.
The contract, awarded under Phase III of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programme comes as Artemis I, the first unmanned mission in a programme that will eventually return humans to the moon, returned to Earth in December 2022.
CON’s Olympus system is intended to be a multi-purpose construction system primarily using local Lunar and Martian resources as building materials to further the efforts of NASA as well as commercial organisations to establish a sustained lunar presence once humans return to the moon. ICON also intends to work with lunar regolith samples brought back from Apollo missions and various regolith simulants to determine their mechanical behavior in simulated lunar gravity.
These findings will yield results that inform future lunar construction approaches for the broader space community, including for critical infrastructure like landing pads, blast shields and roads.
This technology will help to establish the critical infrastructure necessary for a sustainable lunar economy including, eventually, longer term lunar habitation. ICON’s development plans are following a “live off the land” approach by prioritizing the use of in-situ/native materials found on the Moon.
From landing pads to habitats, these collective efforts are driven by the need to make humanity a spacefaring civilisation.