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Lava Hive: ISRU Mars habitat

Stepwise illustration of the casting process to produce the Lava Hive; (1) deposition of foundation base, (2) regolith is gathered and sintered into a flow channel, (3) molten basalt from the sand/regolith is poured into the channel and allowed to solidify, (4) the next layer of regolith is spread across, and another channel sintered, (5) layer by layer the structure is constructed, (6) loose, un-sintered regolith is excavated from the structure, revealing the completed dome. Credits Aidan Cowley, et al.*

In a paper posted on Academia.edu, the 3rd prize winner for the 2015 NASA 3D Printed Mars Habitat Centennial Challenge called Lava Hive is described by a team* of European researchers. The habitat is produced by additive manufacturing via a ‘lava-casting’ construction technique and utilizing recycled spacecraft structures. Innovations include ‘re-use’ of discarded landing vehicles as part of the central habitat, 3D printed adjacent structures connected to the central habitat and use of a novel ‘LavaCast’ process to fabricate solid structures resistant to radiation and thermal cycling.

Illustration of the Lava Hive. The central habitat core is shown with the smaller 3D printed satellite structures clustered around it. Credits: René Waclavicek, LIQUIFER Systems Group, 2015

The Lava Hive Mars settlement has a number of advantages including a modular design with the ability to expand or adapt to changing mission requirements while “living off the land” with a simple ISRU process utilizing Martian soil, thereby reducing the amount of mass that would need to be launched from Earth.

* Authors of this paper are: Aidan Cowley, Barbara Imhof, Leo Teeney, René Waclavicek, Francesco Spina, Alberto Canals, Juergen Schleppi, Pablo Lopez Soriano