• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
• /
• 2008.11a
• /
• pp.828-832
• /
• 2008

In 2004, The U.S president Bush announces space Exploration Vision included in Lunar outpost plan. Following the Space Exploration Vision announced by Bush, NASA made Construction Roadmap and studied space construction varietly to construct Lunar Outpost in 2025. The purpose to construct Lunar outpost is to develop space science and hitech industry and to secure the lunar materials. Especially, Lunar has more than 5billion ton He-3. In this reason, The countries advanced in Space Industry like U.S., Japan, Europe and China is studying space construction to mine Lunar materials and shelter to live. In this paper, We will make definition and necesarity of space construction and research Space Construction research trends to use for the preparation of Korea's space construction roadmap.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.38 no.12
• /
• pp.125-134
• /
• 2022

The Global Expansion Roadmap published by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group, which is organized by space agencies around the world, presents future lunar exploration guidance and stresses a lunar habitat program to utilize lunar resources. The Moon attracts attention as an outpost for deep space exploration. Simulating lunar surface environments is required to evaluate the performances of various equipment for future lunar surface missions. In this paper, an experimental study was conducted to simulate high vacuum pressure and cryogenic temperature of the permanent shadow regions in the lunar south pole, which is a promising candidate for landing and outpost construction. The establishment of an efficient dirty thermal vacuum chamber (DTVC) operation process has never been presented. One-dimensional ground cooling tests were conducted with various vacuum pressures with the Korean Lunar Simulant type-1 (KLS-1) in DTVC. The most advantageous vacuum pressure was found to be 30-80 mbar, considering the cooling efficiency and equipment stability. However, peripheral cooling is also required to simulate a cryogenic for not sublimating ice in a high vacuum pressure. In this study, an efficient peripheral cooling operation process was proposed by applying the frost ratio concept.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.5-17
• /
• 2021

The Moon has been an attractive planet as an outpost for deep space exploration since He-3 and water ice which can be used as energy resources were discovered. In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) construction material fabrication method is required for sustainable space planet exploration. In this paper, the possibility of microwave sintering technology for construction material fabrication was evaluated using lunar regolith that can be easily collected from the Moon surface. Experimental assessment of the influence factors on microwave sintering was conducted using a hybrid sintering system for efficient processing. The heat distribution in the furnace was observed using thermal paper that is coated with a material formulated to change color when exposed to heat. Based on this result, sintered cylindrical KLS-1s with a diameter of 1 cm and a height of 2 cm were fabricated. Densities were measured for the sintered KLS-1s under rotating turntable conditions that have an effect of microwave dispersion. The more dielectrics were arranged, the more microwaves were dispersed reducing the heat concentration, and thus a uniformity of sintered KLS-1s was enhanced.