Twenty student teams from across Europe are participating in the project Igluna to develop accommodation for people on the moon. The idea is a Habitat in ice under the surface of the moon, in the people in the hostile environment and can live life.

After the Teams have tested their concepts to a mid-term event in January at the Cern once more on the heart and kidneys, it goes now to the construction of the prototypes, such as the “Swiss Space Center” the ETH Lausanne (EPFL) announced. Until June, the modules should arrive in a glacier grotto at the Klein Matterhorn in Zermatt, and all there is to come together to extensive testing. In Parallel, an exhibition in the village centre of Zermatt is to inform the students of the project.

Transport by gondola and Lift

During the construction of the prototypes must bear in mind the Teams, among other things, that the individual parts must fit in the gondola and a Lift to get to the ice cave, it was said in the message. The cave is 15 meters below the glacier surface. A temperature of minus 4 degrees Celsius.

The individual projects include, for example, an Autonomous robot, the ETH Zurich, the cutting out blocks of ice and the resulting walls can be build, as well as an optimized and closed-cultivation system based on human waste as a fertilizer of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW). A Team from the University of Lucerne, makes a algae bioreactor, the produced oxygen.

special Eissäge and VR-model

From the ETH Lausanne are involved in multiple Teams. You develop a System to analyze the connection between the design of the Habitat and the social behavior of the residents, and an automated structure for the hydroponic growing system of the ZHAW , an advanced arch structure made of wood and XPS sandwich panels for the architecture of the Habitat, a special Eissäge as well as Virtual Reality 3D model.

Also from other countries, students teams are involved from Estonia, Italy, Germany, Romania, Poland, Greece, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The project Igluna is coordinated by the Swiss Space Center and the European space Agency, ESAS , and the Swiss Space Office of the state Secretariat for education, research and Innovation (SPFI).

the prototypes should be taken to pave the way for the technological building blocks of a lunar habitat, “in which it is worthwhile to live”, it says on the Igluna project site.

mining, research stations, growing vegetables on the moon: Why should someone on the inhospitable celestial body want to live? Video: time-space/Youtube

(oli/sda)

Created: 04.04.2019, 11:21 PM

GERELATEERDE ARTIKELENMEER VAN DEZE AUTEUR