R-9 Forge
Regolith into infrastructure
- Status
- Pilot line — Iceland basalt facility
A mining and sintering platform that converts loose planetary soil into roads, pads and pressure-rated blocks.
Everything you launch costs more than everything you build on site. R-9 Forge excavates, sorts and sinters regolith into structural elements, so the first cargo to arrive is a factory rather than a building.
- 01Autonomous excavation and haulage
- 02Solar sintering of structural blocks
- 03Water extraction from ice-rich soil
- 04Landing pad and road construction
Closed dust loop
Abrasive fines are captured and re-fed instead of coating every joint on the machine. Bearing life rises by an order of magnitude.
Solar-only thermal
Concentrated sunlight replaces a nuclear kiln. Production simply follows the sun, and the machine sleeps through the night.
Prints its own pad
The first task of every Forge is a landing pad, so the second cargo lands without kicking a debris field into orbit.
R-9 Forge
Figures are current qualification values and are updated as campaigns close.
- Excavation rate
- 3.1 t per sol
- Sinter temperature
- 1 180 °C solar
- Block strength
- 32 MPa compressive
- Water yield
- 18 l per tonne of ice-rich soil
- Crew required
- None
Talk to the team behind this system
Programme enquiries, technical documentation and partnership requests.