FOCUSED SESSION 5: Sustainable Design and Manufacturing of Advanced Ceramics for Space Applications

Advanced materials will enable space exploration and future possible life in outer space, Moon and Mars. Launch vehicles, spacecrafts, satellites, communication systems, and space infrastructures are some examples of space systems that need major improvements and pose new challenges in the field of material science and manufacturing. Advanced ceramics provide high strength-to-weight ratios, good thermal insulation, radiation shielding, and sometimes self-healing capabilities. For space habitation, space sustainability is becoming increasingly relevant, promoting a conscious use of space. All these activities influence environmental, economic, and social aspects. Space is a harsh environment where in-space manufacturing technologies will face microgravity, (non)ionizing radiation, vacuum, thermal cycling and other unique aspects of the space weather. These aspects may assist in producing unique materials and structures.  

In this framework, manufacturing and sustainability of advanced ceramics for space application is a topic of great interest not only for the international scientific community but also for all the space agencies and industrial sectors who are planning to extend human activities beyond Earth. Recently, design, manufacturing and testing of advanced ceramics on Earth and in outer space are the subjects of several research studies. Their possible use in harsh and extreme conditions of space, is opening a new frontier of the in-space manufacturing in different environments, different gravity conditions and possibility of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) for new habitats potentially on Moon and Mars. This symposium solicits abstracts related to design, manufacturing and testing of novel advanced ceramics for space applications, also considering aspects of space sustainability.  

Proposed Session Topics 

• Ceramics for space in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) 

• Ceramics for space habitats 

• Ceramics for space infrastructure 

• Ceramics for space power and propulsion systems 

• 3D Printed Components for antennas of small satellites 

• Structural and thermal ceramics for space applications 

• Ceramics for shielding systems 

• Ceramics for optics and space instruments 

• Sustainable utilization of space resources and recycling 

Symposium Organizers 

• Loredana Santo, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy 

• Amjad S Almansour, NASA Glenn Research Center, USA 

• Malgorzata Holynska, European Space Research and Technology Centre, Netherlands 

• Alamgir Karim, University of Houston, USA 

• Giorgia Franchin, University of Padua, Italy 

Points of Contact 

• Loredana Santo; loredana.santo@uniroma2.it  

• Amjad S Almansour; amjad.s.almansour@nasa.gov