On November 29, 2022, NASA awarded Austin-based ICON a $57.2 million Phase III Small Business Innovation Research contract to continue Project Olympus, in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. The programme runs through 2028 and targets extrusion-based additive construction of lunar landing pads, habitats, blast shields, roads, and related infrastructure using local lunar regolith; Mars applications are also included.[1][2][3]
The system could shift lunar settlement economics from transporting structural materials to transporting construction equipment, power systems, binders, and specialised feedstocks. Regolith-based construction may provide radiation and micrometeoroid shielding while reducing launch dependence, but Ark adoption requires proof of autonomous operation, material consistency, vacuum and thermal-cycle performance, dust control, seismic stability, repairability, and long-duration equipment reliability. The technology remains developmental rather than an operational habitat capability.[2][5][8]
The Ark team should track NASA’s Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies work and ICON’s milestones through 2028. Research should define acceptance tests for printed regolith structures, preserve Olympus-relevant process data and digital construction files, compare local-material formulations with alternative shielding methods, and design an open, vendor-independent construction architecture so a single commercial supplier cannot become a civilisation-critical dependency.[2][8]