From waste to worth – 3D printing on Mars

For long-term stays on Mars, astronauts would need facilities to live and work, to move around, to communicate with Earth, and to produce oxygen and water vital for survival. Taking all this infrastructure from Earth would be very expensive. Instead, ESA is thinking about how to 3D print some of it on site using Martian soil as an input material.

Previous ESA-funded research has shown that this would be possible. The next step is being undertaken by Austrian research group FOTEC, in a research activity that is aiming to better understand the effect of the Martian environment on construction materials and processes. The research team is also looking at recycling waste into new materials; this waste could come from equipment brought from Earth and not used anymore, for example plastic food packaging.

Advenit Makaya, advanced manufacturing engineer at ESA explains: "This activity is part of ESA's continuous effort to identify and develop technologies to use onsite resources to help build and maintain the required infrastructure and ensure the sustainability of future long-term exploration missions."

In particular, FOTEC is building upon a previous ESA activity focusing on building on Mars using Martian soil. Using the knowledge gained in years since the activity completed, they will introduce novel processing techniques to improve the performance of the building material.

Markus Hatzenbichler, Head of Engineering Technologies at FOTEC expands: "The investigation into waste recycling, including using waste as a binding agent, is an important part of this activity. Whilst the main goal is to support the preparation of future missions to Mars, in the shorter term the results may support our understanding of insulation and structural integrity in the field of civil engineering."