Materials for Space Exploration

MAPEX Symposium 2020 - 31 August - 2 September

The symposium took place as a hybrid event – on site and virtual.

The key features

all talks were broadcasted via zoom to the registered conference participants;
no registration fee – register today;
the "on-site hub" was set up in a large meeting room at the campus of the University of Bremen;
poster sessions took place online only, details can be found here.

For the complete programme click link above

02.09.2020

Gernot Grömer, Administrative Director of the Austrian Space Forum, Innsbruck Austria

Spacesuit Development and Testing Strategies

Spacesuits for planetary surface activities face a set of design challenges such as limited maintenance capabilities. Suit textiles for future lunar or Martian EVA’s need to have capabilities not required for Earth orbit operations, such as high abrasive…

02.09.2020

Yinglu Tang, Chair Metals for Space Exploration, TU Delft, The Netherlands

Thermoelectrics for space applications - from defect study to structural design

Thermoelectric materials have been used in Radioisotrope Thermoelectric generators (RTG) as auxiliary power for space exploration. The energy efficiency is determined by the figure-of-merit zT, which is dependent on…

01.09.2020

Silvio Sandrone, Airbus Defence and Space GmbH

Building the ecosystem for space resource extraction and utilization

Although humans have not travelled beyond the Moon, yet, global space business (excluding the downstream services) exceeds nowadays €80bn a year. This business depends on carrying from Earth all required hardware or resources. The…

01.09.2020

Loredana Santo, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy

Shape Memory Polymer Composites and Cosmic Ray Shielding Materials in Space Environment

Shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) and cosmic ray shielding (CRS) materials are advanced materials for space applications. To evaluate their behaviour in microgravity and the harsh space environment, a…

01.09.2020

Patric Seefeldt, DLR Institute of Space Systems, Bremen

Artificial Solar Wind for Space Material Developments

Investigating materials under space environment conditions requires the artificial recreation of both corpuscular and electromagnetic radiation under ultra-high vacuum conditions. DLR’s Complex Irradiation Facility combines a proton and an…

01.09.2020

Kaline Pagnan Furlan, Hamburg University of Technology

Ceramic-based photonic materials for high-temperature applications

In this talk ceramic-based inverse opal photonic crystals produced via ALD will be presented and their behavior when exposed to high temperatures depicted. Special focus will be given on the refractory material mullite and the…

31.08.2020

Christiane Heinicke, ZARM

The challenges of living on the Moon: from simulations towards an extraterrestrial base

Recent projections see ESA’s Moon Village inhabited before 2030. In order to provide shelter to the astronauts, the ZARM is developing the concept of a habitat protype: The Moon and Mars Base Analog (MaMBA)…

31.08.2020

Scott McCormack, University of California, Davis

In-situ Phase Equilibria and Thermal Expansion up to ~3400 ˚C

High-temperature materials are essential for the success of space travel. Here, we present how a conical nozzle levitator equipped with a CO2 laser can be coupled with in-situ diffraction experiments and calorimetry experiments to…

The symposium brought highly distinguished members of academia and industry together, who are shaping worldwide the research landscape on the discovery, synthesis, manufacturing and use of materials for present and future space exploration endeavours. Limited to no more than 80 to 100 participants, including about 20 invited speakers, it provided a platform for exchange of the latest ideas and presentation of novel results in this rapidly evolving and highly inspiring field. The symposium covered four main subject areas:

space exploration applications,
new materials engineering and manufacturing,
physical chemistry of new materials,
automated new materials discovery.

The talks spanned a wide range of topics, including: materials for habitats; materials for spacecrafts; materials for space suits; regolith and dust; gravityless manufacturing; abrasion, heat and radiation damage.

The MAPEX Center for Materials and Processes of the University of Bremen hosted the first Symposium on Materials for Space Exploration.