Archinect - News

NASA tests autonomous construction robots for future use in outer space

2024-02-06T11:09:00-05:00

NASA has unveiled details of a robotic system designed to construct and maintain structural components in space. The system, developed by NASA’s Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems (ARMADAS) team, consists of inchworm-like robots that may one day assemble, repair, and reconfigure structural materials in orbit, on the lunar surface, or on other planets, before humans arrive.

A Scaling Omnidirectional Lattice Locomoting Explorer (SOLL-E) builder robot carries a small building block called a voxel – short for volumetric pixel – as it maneuvers, stepping inchworm-style, along the exterior of a mechanical metamaterial structure. Image credit: NASA/Dominic Hart

NASA’s system revolves around a set of 3D building blocks called voxels, which resemble a wire-frame soccer ball. Made of strong, lightweight composite materials, the voxels combine to create a system that, according to NASA, is comparable to current high-performance structures such as bridges, aircraf...

ICON receives NASA funding to create 3D printing methods using materials from the Moon and Mars

2022-11-30T14:26:00-05:00

3D printing company ICON has been awarded funding by NASA to develop lunar surface construction systems. The $57.2 million contract was awarded under NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program and will see ICON develop “space-based construction technology” with the aim of creating humanity’s “first-ever construction on another planetary body.”

Concept render of ICON's proposed system. Image credit: ICON

The technology system, which ICON names Olympus, seeks to primarily use local Lunar and Martian resources as building materials. As part of this, the company plans on using lunar regolith samples brought back from the Apollo missions as well as regolith replicas to further understand their mechanical behavior. ICON’s hardware and software will also be tested in a lunar gravity simulation flight to study their potential performance beyond Earth.

If successful, the system may be used to create critical infrastructure on the Moon, including landing pads, blast shields, and roads. ...

BIG's 3D-printed Mars simulation habitat is taking shape

2021-08-09T12:23:00-04:00

Images have been revealed of a 3D-printed structure being built to help simulate life on Mars. Named Mars Dune Alpha, the habitat was designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group for NASA and advanced construction developer ICON, intended to form part of future long-duration, explorative science missions. The 1,700 square-foot structure is currently being built at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where it will host a simulation environment for future space explorers.

Rendering. Image: BIG / ICON / NASA

The habitat has been designed along varying levels of privacy. Four private crew quarters are located on one end of the habitat, while dedicated work stations, medical stations, and food-growing stations are located at the opposite end. Shared living spaces will connect the two zones in the middle. Varying ceiling heights, responding to an arching shell structure, accentuate the unique experiences and uses of each area to avoid a sense of monotony or user fatigue. Meanwhile, a mix o...

ABIBOO Studio pulls from their expertise in space architecture to develop a luxury doomsday bunker

2021-01-07T16:19:00-05:00

2020 taught us to embrace the indoors. However, as the world enters 2021, some may feel more propelled to seek out shelters that can protect them from calamity. At least that's how the New York and Miami-based practice ABIBOO Studio explains their latest project, the DBX Doomsday Bunker.

Led by Spanish architect and designer Alfredo Munoz, the firm's work focuses on many design projects that revolve around architecture, technology, interiors, and research and development. Munoz is also a member of the AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) and recognized on an exclusive list of Space Architects. Here he pulls from the firm's expertise in space architecture and luxury living to develop DBX.

"The shelter can accommodate up to two family groups and a maximum of ten people. It occupies 12,000 square feet and is accessed through a lifting military-grade door camouflaged on a green-covered hill." Project visual and description courtesy of ABIBOO Studio

"The entrance i...

New research study indicates chitin could be a suitable building material for Mars habitation

2020-09-30T13:08:00-04:00

A study conducted by Javier Fernandez and colleagues from Singapore University of Technology and Design provides research that the bioinspired material, chitin, would be a viable building material for Mars inhabitation and tool production.

Fernandez shares with Universe Today that by reverse-engineering chitin production and combining it with an analog of Martian soil, new chitinous material was created. This material called biolith has presented itself to be highly useful in creating rigid structures using minimal energy output.

“The technology was originally developed to create circular ecosystems in urban environments, but due to its efficiency, it is also the most efficient and scalable method to produce materials in a closed artificial ecosystem in the extremely scarce environment of a lifeless planet or satellite,” explains Fernandez.

"Moving to Mars" at UK Design Museum highlights multi-sensory space design

2019-10-17T17:00:00-04:00

The exhibition features immersive environments, about 200 objects including contributions from NASA, the European Space Agency and SpaceX; NASA's 3D-Printed Mars Habitat Challenge winners, AI SpaceFactory; robotic builders by Foster & Partners; the first sustainable urban design for Mars, Mars City Design; the first spacesuit designed for the Mars surface; Christopher Raeburn's new fashion collection inspired by the red planet and much more.

The exhibition opens October 18th and will run until February 2020.

3D-printed Mars Habitat by Foster + Partners

Christopher Raeburn spring-summer '20 campaign. Image courtesy of Christopher Raeburn

AI SpaceFactory wants you to experience Mars on Earth

2019-09-03T21:00:00-04:00

You might remember AI SpaceFactory as the New York-based multidisciplinary design agency that took home first place in NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. The team was awarded a $500,000 grand prize for their proposal entitled MARSHA.

Expanding on lessons learned from MARSHA, the agency has now designed and developed a successor called TERA, "built from a 3D-printed biopolymer basalt composite—a material developed from crops like corn and sugar cane—tested and validated by NASA to be [at least] 50% stronger and more durable than concrete."

TERA. Image courtesy of AI SpaceFactory

AI SpaceFactory promotes this method as a more sustainable approach than traditional concrete and steel, something they believe will be essential to building operations in a future on Mars as well as Earth.

"Nestled in the woods of upstate New York along the Hudson River, TERA is available on a nightly basis for anyone wanting to experience what sustainable life could be like on Mars–and on Earth," writes th...

Foster + Partners' extra-terrestrial habitats will be displayed at Goodwood Festival 2018

2018-07-06T15:31:00-04:00

Continuing with designing for space, Foster + Partners will showcase their vision of life on Mars and the Moon as part of the Future Lab showcase at the 2018 Goodwood Festival. The firm will show a range of models, robotics, and futuristic designs to explore the future of life in space.

Habitation pod design by Foster + Partners. Image: Fost + Partners.

Foster + Partners takes a central position at this year’s FoS Future Lab, which is focused on space exploration, autonomous transport, robotics, and personal flight.

Habitation pod design by Foster + Partners. Image: Fost + Partners.

The firm will be showing their latest award-winning projects carried out for competitions organized by NASA in the event’s second edition of the Future Lab innovation exhibition.

Habitation pod design by Foster + Partners. Image: Fost + Partners.

At the center of the firm's display will be a scale model based on the Mars and lunar habitation pods they designed. Visitors will be able to "walk through" a vir...

Stefano Boeri envisions Vertical Forest Seeds on Mars in Shanghai Urban Space Art Season 2017

2017-10-19T14:58:00-04:00

Stefano Boeri's Vertical Forest towers are slowly popping up around the world. In Shanghai, the concept is transported to the Red Planet in “Vertical Forest Seeds on Mars”. The project is part of the Shanghai Urban Space and Art Season 2017 exhibition (SUSAS), which Stefano Boeri co-curated with Li Xiangning (Dean of the Tongji University School of Architecture and Urban Planning) and Fang Zhenning (independent artist and international critic).

Currently open at Shanghai's Minsheng Port, the three-month SUSAS exhibition showcases art, architecture, urban planning, and design projects that envision the future of today's cities.

Image credit: Stefano Boeri Architetti.

Developed by Stefano Boeri Architetti's China studio and Tongji University's Future City Lab as a response to Earth's rising sea levels, the project envisions a “colony of Shanghai on the Red Planet” in 2117. Habitable “eco-systemic seeds” would travel via an interplanetary space st...

Elon Musk plans to start colonies on Mars in only 5 years

2017-10-02T13:27:00-04:00

Musk's talk — which took place Friday afternoon local Adelaide time — served to update the architecture the billionaire entrepreneur revealed at last year's IAC, in Guadalajara, Mexico. That previous presentation introduced a huge, reusable rocket-spaceship combo called the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which Musk envisioned helping to establish a million-person city on Mars within the next 50 to 100 years.

SpaceX, aerospace manufacturer and space transport service provider, plans to launch its first Mars cargo missions in 2022 and the first crews in 2024. These first flights are meant to initiate the construction of a permanent, sustainable city on Mars.

BIG to design UAE's $136M Mars Science City that replicates life on Mars

2017-09-27T13:57:00-04:00

The Mars Science City structure will be the most sophisticated building the world, and will incorporate a realistic simulation environment replicating the conditions on the surface of Mars. A team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers, led by a team from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre and Dubai Municipality, will carry out the project, in cooperation with internationally renowned architects Bjarke Ingels.

The United Arab Emirates is set to begin work on a $136M project to build a city stimulating conditions of life on Mars. The project is a part of the country's Mars by 2117 strategy, launched earlier this year by HH Sheikh Mohammed, in which the Gulf state seeks to lead the global scientific race to take people to Mars.

The Mars Science City will stand as a prototype for the first human settlement on Mars. Plans involve the creation of a 1.9 millions square-foot simulation city, consisting of several domes, complete with laboratories for food and water, walls created using sand from the Emirati desert, and a museum that displays humanity’s greatest space achievements. The project will utilize 3D printed technology as well as heat and radiation insulation to imitate the red planet’s terrain and harsh environment.

"The UAE seeks to establish international efforts to develop technologies that benefit humankind, and that establish the foundation of a better future for more generations ...

MIT team wins NASA challenge to design luxury hotel in low Earth orbit

2017-06-29T13:07:00-04:00

The MIT project — the Managed, Reconfigurable, In-space Nodal Assembly (MARINA) — was designed as a commercially owned and operated space station, featuring a luxury hotel as the primary anchor tenant and NASA as a temporary co-anchor tenant for 10 years. NASA’s estimated recurring costs, $360 million per year, represent an order of magnitude reduction from the current costs of maintaining and operating the International Space Station.

Left to right: Caitlin Mueller (faculty advisor), Matthew Moraguez, George Lordos, and Valentina Sumini are some of the members of the interdisciplinary MIT team that won first place in the graduate division of the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts-Academic Linkage Design Competition Forum.

Part luxury hotel, part future Mars explorer, MIT's MARINA has a modular design that works not only to provide a bar, restaurant, gym,and eight rooms for low orbit guests, but can be reconfigured to create an "interplanetary Mars transit vehicle that can enter Mars’ orbit, refuel from locally produced methane fuel, and return to Earth." At last: a luxury hotel at which it would be appropriate to charge sky-high prices.

Elon Musk unveils his plan to colonize Mars with a million humans

2017-06-22T12:37:00-04:00

“It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37% of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around,” [Elon Musk] adds, predicting that journey times could eventually be cut to 30 days.

Aside from the money, specific technology, and solid timeframe, Elon Musk has figured out a way to get to Mars. The colonization plan, which is designed to place about 1 million people on the planet in 40-100 years using a yet-to-be constructed ship that would carry 100 passengers per trip, needs more financial backers before Musk can definitively settle on a launch date. Many scientists have objected to the plan on various technological grounds, although one brought up the problem of potentially contaminating alien life forms:

Prof Andrew Coates, who works on the ExoMars rover at University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory, said that the question of whether present or past life existed on Mars needed to be answered before a manned mission, which could contaminate the surface, could be considered. “There’s a moral imperative to keep Mars as it is for the moment. Until we’ve conclusively answered that question we should keep our feet on the ground ... going there wou...

The UAE announces plans to build a miniature city on Mars

2017-02-15T17:42:00-05:00

The ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has announced intentions to build a “miniature city” on Mars within the next 100 years, reports Arabian Business. Sheikh Mohammed, who also serves as the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, launched the project at the World Government Summit. Entitled the 2117 Mars project, the endeavor aims to develop scientific capabilities, and may result in the conversion of local universities into research facilities.

"There are no limits to the imagination and aspirations of human beings," Sheikh Mohammed tweeted.

Apparently, the UAE counts as one of the major investors in space travel. Back in November, Sheikh Mohammed approved the designs for a Mars probe, which should reach the planet by 2021. It will study changes in the planet’s atmosphere.

The logistics of building NASA's carbon-dioxide insulated, "Ice Home" on Mars

2017-01-03T13:04:00-05:00

If you don't think you can handle another year on Earth, the possibility of dwelling comfortably on another planet is closer than you might expect. After announcing a winning design from Clouds Architecture Office and Space Exploration Architecture last October, NASA has released more detailed logistical plans for building a carbon dioxide insulated, ice-filled exterior home that could be assembled by robots in preparation for human habitation. The design uses naturally occurring resources found on Mars and predicts that with the planet's estimated daily water extraction rate, it would take about 400 days for the exterior to be filled with water. As the article notes:

The “Mars Ice Home” is a large inflatable torus, a shape similar to an inner tube, which is surrounded by a shell of water ice. The Mars Ice Home design has several advantages that make it an appealing concept. It is lightweight and can be transported and deployed with simple robotics, then filled with water before the...

How to turn Martian soil into concrete

2016-01-07T17:46:00-05:00

Thanks to the work of Lin Wan and pals at Northwestern University...these guys have worked out how to make Martian concrete using materials that are widely available on Mars. And, crucially, this concrete can be formed without using water, which will be a precious resource on the red planet.

For more of Archinect's coverage of extra-terrestrial architectural news, check out:

• NASA launches competition for structures built in situ using Martian resources

• The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface

• ESA proposes a village on the moon

NASA launches competition for structures built in situ using Martian resources

2015-10-14T16:45:00-04:00

Living off the land is different when the land is 140 million miles away, so NASA is looking for innovative ideas to use in situ (in place) Martian resources to help establish a human presence on the Red Planet.

After NASA announced strong evidence of the presence of liquid water on Mars, efforts to bring Earthlings to the red planet seems to be picking up steam. Elon Musk is talking about nuking its poles and design competitions, like the 3-D Printed Habitat Challenge, are increasingly looking at extraterrestrial design, garnering responses by such luminary architectural forces as Foster + Partners.

Now, NASA has launched a competition calling for innovative Martian structures to be built in situ with locally-available resources.

Mars is 141 million miles away, which means even an extra carry-on will cost you. So any type trip to the planet will greatly benefit from using local materials to set up camp. NASA estimates that for every kilogram of native materials used, you save 11 kg of propellant and spacecraft mass needed for launching to Low Earth Orbit.

According to the competition website: "One could use surface-based materials such as regolith or basalt to produce structural elements tha...

California or Mars? Test how well you can spot your own planet from the red planet

2015-10-14T14:08:00-04:00

Sure, California has a lot more drinkable liquid water than Mars, and we hope it stays that way. But we couldn't help but notice some similarities between the landscapes of the Red Planet and the Golden State. After all, JPL scientists use California's deserts as a stand in for testing Mars rovers. How well can you tell these two arid places apart? Take this quiz to find out. No space suit required.

The Mars Ice House envisions the day Earthlings can live with ease atop the Martian surface

2015-10-10T11:52:00-04:00

So continues the space-age fantasy of humankind someday living successfully on the Red Planet, or undertaking expeditions to the far ends of the universe. In this spirit, NASA and America Makes' launched their 3D Printed Habitat Challenge late last year, wherein multi-disciplinary teams proposed shelters equipped to endure the environments of Mars and (eventually) deep-space exploration.

Following rigorous evaluations by the jury and a public showcase at the NYC World Maker Faire this past September, the eight-member Clouds AO + Space Exploration Architecture (SEArch) team took home the overall winning $25,000 prize with their "Mars Ice House" design, out of 30 finalist submissions.

Enticing sci-fi aesthetics aside, the Mars Ice House's optimistic approach focuses on interior-to-exterior terrestrial concepts that could enable inhabitants to live comfortably and in harmony on the Martian surface, instead of buried underneath and completely closed off. "The architecture of ICE HOUSE...e...

NASA discovers liquid water on Mars

2015-09-28T14:57:00-04:00

“It took multiple spacecraft over several years to solve this mystery, and now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Program at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.”

In an announcement made this morning, NASA stated that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has detected "the strongest evidence yet" of liquid water on the fourth planet from the Sun.

The new evidence emerged from data collected by an imaging spectrometer mounted on the spacecraft, which was launched in 2005 and has been orbiting Mars since 2006. According to the announcement, "researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet." The signatures appear to corroborate existing hypotheses.

Known as recurring slop lineae (RSL), the streaks seem to ebb and flow, apparently in accord with seasonal fluctuations. Previously suggested as an indicator of the presence of water, the discovery of hydrated salts further validates this idea.

The salts – likely a mixture of magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate, and sodium perchlorate – would help lower the freezing point of what is likely a subsurface flow that occasionally breach...

Challenging the space-age Manifest Destiny narrative, as Elon Musk vies to move humans to Mars

2015-05-08T12:26:00-04:00

It’s a myth almost universally believed, that sits at the core of liberal technocratic thought, and has been embedded in practically every other work of speculative fiction for the last half century. You can sum it up like this: 'When we go into space, we will all magically become nice.'...It’s early days, but if we really want to create a progressive new world then issues like these should be at the hearts of our efforts from the very start.

The longtime space-age Manifest Destiny of humans inhabiting Mars and the prominently white, European male perspective that narrative perpetually emphasizes has become a bubbling multi-faceted discussion among science bloggers as Elon Musk's staunch ambitions to ultimately turn humans into a "multiplanet species" continue to develop. Stemming from that discussion, writer Martin Robbins of The Guardian contemplates whether or not humanity's eventual future on Mars can exist without the earthly issues of sexism and racism.

MARS wins Walltopia competition in Sofia, Bulgaria

2013-12-02T14:45:00-05:00

For anyone returning from the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps a fitness-inspired project could help ward off a little of that holiday indulgence. MARS Architects recently won the competition to design the headquarters for leading sports activity brand Walltopia in Sofia, Bulgaria. Chosen out of 369 entries from 63 countries by the Foster + Partners-led jury, MARS' proposal is an 8,800 sq.m hybrid structure whose program is cleverly "folded" by an interweaving climbing atrium.

Images courtesy of MARS Architects.