MoonFiber | Fiber-regolith reinforced lavatube outpost
Moonfiber is a project for the construction of a settlement located in a lunar Lava Tube. This choice is determined by the need to exploit a place with characteristics suitable for human permanence in the long term, achieving a balance between safety and relative construction economy. The Moon is a hostile environment, seemingly devoid of blatant resources, subject to the most destructive events in the solar system, such as the constant bombardment of both micrometeorites and radiation, as well as occasional solar storms. The project finds full realization, in its working and living functional divisions, below the lunar surface, while the areas used for ISRU, 3D printing, payload unloading, and energy production operations are located near the entrance of the Lava Tube, to which they connect via a main logistic axis. The main structure, built in the Lava Tube, is made up of a series of inflatable modules held suspended in the center of the gallery by a mesh of composite material fibers obtained through extrusion and winding of regolith fiber. The weaving technique of the supporting structure becomes the turning point regarding the architectural composition of the settlement because it makes everything light and parameterized based on the morphology of the place, which is subject to an automated preliminary scan by robots performing as an avant-garde fleet, extrapolating the optimized topology underlying the definition of the framework of the system. This structure is initially defined by its anchorages to the Lava Tube walls, to which the upper and lower load-bearing fibers are connected, on which rests a mesh, also in fiber, which performs the function of a suspended base for the inflatable modules.
Project Year
2023
Team Members
Vittorio Netti
Paolo Mangili
Alessandro Angione
Ivana Fuscello
Isabella Paradiso
Credits
MoonFiber Team
