Brickbot for Lunar Surface Subscale Technology Demonstration

Project Overview / Rationale The purpose of the Brickbot development is to demonstrate molten tile deposition technology for lunar surface construction of roads, landing pads, and planar surface pavements. End-to-end 3D construction printing from raw lunar regolith is a multi-step process that encompasses regolith collection, regolith beneficiation, heating the pre-sorted regolith material, and, finally, forming and emplacing brick tiles to assemble the final structures. The Brickbotproject will demonstrate in the actual operating environment technical solutions for several steps of the lunar construction process using a single robotic platform for various technology demonstrations: (1) raw regolith excavation and delivery to an intake hopper; (2) regolith filtering and sieving for feedstock beneficiation; (3) regolith melting; and (4) forming of brick tiles and placing joining to form a cohesive sample surface. The objective of the project is to establish feasibility of the key technical approaches and to perform risk reduction for constituent technologies. Shortfalls Addressed: 369 - Excavation of granular (surface) regolith for ISRU commodities production 385 - Regolith and resource delivery system 662 - Robotic regolith manipulation and site preparation 1400 - On surface robotic assembly of horizontal structures 666 - On-surface ISRU-based construction of horizontal structures 1584 - Produce manufacturing and construction feedstock from extracted in-situ resources