Product/Service - Olympus, Lunar Lantern
- Classification
- Surface Habitats & Structures
- Category
- Space Construction Company
Surface Habitats
- Status
- Development
- First launch
- 2026
- The nearly $60 million contract builds upon previous NASA and Department of Defense funding for ICON’s Project Olympus to research and develop space-based construction systems to support planned exploration of the Moon and beyond.
- ICON’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 organizations to establish a sustained lunar presence.
- In support of NASA’s Artemis program, ICON plans to bring its advanced hardware and software into space via a lunar gravity simulation flight.
- 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.
- Instead of Lavacrete, ICON is experimenting with using lunar regolith, the mineral-rich dust and rock that covers the moon’s surface. The regolith can be melted with a laser and turned into a ceramic-like material that is hard, durable and radiation-absorbing, explained Ballard.
- Parts of the construction system have been tested in a vacuum, and will next be tested in simulated lunar gravity, before being sent to the moon in 2026 or 2027, he added. The CEO stressed there are no plans for a lunar base yet, but ICON’s tests will represent a significant step in that direction.
DARPA LunA-10 Program Study, 2023-2024
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