BIGが設計した火星の住空間モデル！

建築向け3Dプリンタといった高度な建設技術を開発する企業 ICONが、同社の公式ウェブサイトにて、NASAの火星居住シミュレーションのための3Dプリント空間〈Mars Dune Alpha〉を提供する契約を交わしたと2021年8月6日に発表しています。

（以下、ICONから提供されたテキストの抄訳）

ICONの次世代3Dプリント建設システム「Vulcan」は、建築事務所BIG（ビャルケ・インゲルス・グループ）が設計した1,700m²の建築〈Mars Dune Alpha〉を完成させました。
〈Mars Dune Alpha〉はNASAの長期間の宇宙探査ミッションにおける、火星の居住環境をシミュレーションします。

NASAの火星居住シミュレーション「CHAPEA」

ヒューストンのNASAジョンソン宇宙センターにて行われる、1年間の火星ミッションのシミュレーションを3回にわたって行うCHAPEA（The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog）。

宇宙での居住空間におけるクルーの健康とパフォーマンスを評価するためのミッション。その居住環境として用いられるのがBIGが設計した〈Mars Dune Alpha〉です。

宇宙における3Dプリント

居住環境を地球以外の惑星に建築する際、建築材料を地球のものを利用すると打ち上げする重量、回数が増え、コストが高くなります。そこで、現地の材料を使い積層造形技術（アディティブ・マニュファクチャリング）の3Dプリントにて建築することで、コストを大幅に削減することが可能になります。
〈Mars Dune Alpha〉では、火星の砂を用いて3Dプリントすることを想定しています。

#ICON – 3D Tech「NASA’s Mars Surface Simulated Habitat | 3D Printed by ICON, designed by BIG」（2021/08/06）

〈Mars Dune Alpha〉の空間

〈Mars Dune Alpha〉のレイアウトは、プライバシーのグラデーションを考慮し構成されています。
居住区の片側には4つのクルー専用の部屋があり、反対側には専用のワークステーション、医療ステーション、食料栽培ステーションが配置され、その間に共有の居住スペースがあります。
アーチ状のシェル構造とし、各エリアの天井の高さが変わることで、空間の単調さを回避します。固定式と可動式の家具を組み合わせることで、クルーは日々のニーズに合わせて居住空間を再構成することができます。
また、照明、温度、音響をカスタマイズできるため、クルーの概日リズムと整え、健康状態を調整するのに役立ちます。

#ICON – 3D Tech「ICON 3D Prints the First Simulated Mars Surface Habitat for NASA」（2021/08/06）

以下、ICONのリリース（英文）です。

ICON 3D Prints the First Simulated Mars Surface Habitat for NASA Designed by Renowned Architecture Firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group

Mars Dune Alpha, the 3D-printed Habitat Located at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, Will Aid in Long-duration Science Missions

AUSTIN, TX, AUGUST 6, 2021 – ICON, developer of advanced construction technologies including robotics, software, and building materials, today announced it has been awarded a subcontract through Jacobs supporting NASA’s The Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA) to deliver a 3D-printed habitat, known as Mars Dune Alpha, at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. ICON’s next-gen Vulcan construction system will complete a 1,700 square-foot structure, designed by world-renowned architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, that will simulate a realistic Mars habitat to support long-duration, exploration-class space missions.

CHAPEA, is a sequence of three one-year Mars surface mission simulations at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. The analog missions will provide valuable insights and information to assess NASA’s space food system, as well as physical and behavioral health and performance outcomes for future space missions. NASA will use research from the Mars Dune Alpha simulations to inform risk and resource trades to support crew health and performance for future missions to Mars when astronauts would live and work on the Red planet for long periods of time.

Future space exploration habitats have the potential to be 3D printed with additive construction technology to eliminate the need to launch large quantities of building materials on multiple flights, which is cost prohibitive.

“This is the highest-fidelity simulated habitat ever constructed by humans,” said Jason Ballard, co-founder and CEO, ICON. “Mars Dune Alpha is intended to serve a very specific purpose–to prepare humans to live on another planet. We wanted to develop the most faithful analog possible to aid in humanity’s dream to expand into the stars. 3D printing the habitat has further illustrated to us that construction-scale 3D printing is an essential part of humanity’s toolkit on Earth and to go to the Moon and Mars to stay. ”

Life in Mars Dune Alpha will resemble the expected experience for those living in a future Mars surface habitat. Designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, the layout of the innovative structure is organized in a gradient of privacy. Four private crew quarters will be located on one end of the habitat; dedicated workstations, medical stations and food-growing stations are located on the opposite end, with shared living spaces found in between. Varying ceiling heights vertically segmented by an arching shell structure accentuate the unique experience of each area to avoid spatial monotony and crew member fatigue. A mix of fixed and movable furniture will allow crew members to reorganize the habitat according to their daily needs, as will the customizable lighting, temperature, and sound control – helping regulate the daily routine, circadian rhythm, and overall well being of the crew.

“Together with NASA and ICON, we are investigating what humanity’s home on another planet will entail from the human experience,” says Bjarke Ingels, Founder and Creative Director, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “The data gained from this habitat research will directly inform NASA’s standards for long-duration exploration missions, and as such will potentially lay the foundation for a new Martian vernacular. Mars Dune Alpha will take us one step closer to becoming a multiplanetary species.”

Ballard continued, “Bjarke Ingels and the team at BIG are incredible thought leaders in the architecture space. It was important to have a partner who believed in this transformative role of the future of construction and who could help us imagine pioneering new frontiers — both materially, technologically and environmentally.”

Today, NASA has begun its recruitment for the long-duration Mars mission analog study inside the 3D-printed habitat. Applications to participate as crew are being accepted through mid-September 2021 for the one-year analog mission that starts in Fall 2022.
To learn more or to apply, visit www.nasa.gov/chapea/participate.

ICON also received funding from NASA and launched “Project Olympus” to begin research and development of a space-based construction system to support future exploration of the Moon. As part of a government Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract, “Project Olympus” brought ICON and BIG together again to imagine humanity’s first home on another world.

Known for its advanced 3D printing technology for homebuilding on Earth, ICON delivered the first, permitted 3D-printed home in the U.S. in 2018. Since then, the team delivered the world’s first 3D-printed community of homes in Mexico in partnership with housing nonprofit New Story (as seen on Apple TV+ docuseries, “HOME”), completed a series of homes serving the chronically homeless in Austin, TX with nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes at Community First! Village and forged a partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit and United States Marine Corps. In 2021, ICON entered mainstream American housing by printing the first 3D-printed homes sold in the U.S. and launched its Exploration Series of homes pushing the boundaries of architecture and design in 3D-printed home construction. The Austin-based technology company continues to break ground on additional projects spanning mainstream developments, social/affordable housing, disaster-relief housing along with continued work with the Department of Defense and military forces.

For more information visit www.iconbuild.com.

About ICON

ICON develops advanced construction technologies that advance humanity. Using proprietary 3D printing robotics, software and advanced materials, ICON is shifting the paradigm of homebuilding on Earth and beyond. For more information visit www.iconbuild.com or follow the conversation on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube(@ICON3DTech).

About BIG

BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group is a Copenhagen, New York, London and Barcelona based group of architects, designers, urbanists, landscape professionals, interior and product designers, researchers and inventors. The office is currently involved in a large number of projects throughout Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. By hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, we architects once again find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to better fit contemporary life forms.

「ICON 3D Prints the First Simulated Mars Surface Habitat for NASA Designed by BIG」ICON公式サイト

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