NASA sent equipment to the International Space Station to experiment with 3D printing using lunar materials.
Most 3D printers use some kind of filament or resin to create small objects used in maker projects, replacement parts, or efforts to learn what a 3,000-year-old mummy sounded like. NASA reportedly wants to ditch those materials in favor of something else: moon rocks. Universe Today reported that the agency sent a 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Redwire Regolith Print (RRP) project meant to determine if extraterrestrial materials can enable “the on-demand construction of strong, durable structures,” as NASA put it. The space agency said that RRP was designed specifically to enable the use of regolith—dust, broken rocks, and other materials found on the surface of extraterrestrial objects—with the Made In Space Manufacturing Device (ManD) 3D printer that was already onboard the ISS.
