BEIJING, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have produced the lunar soil fibers and sent them to China's space station Tiangong aboard cargo craft Tianzhou-10 earlier this month.
The space journey of these fiber experimental samples is expected to test their ability to withstand the harsh conditions of the real space environment by placing them on an extravehicular exposure platform, where high vacuum, intense radiation, and extreme temperature fluctuations await them.
The lunar soil fibers were prepared by the researchers from the College of Materials Science and Engineering of Donghua University based in east China's Shanghai. They heated the lunar soil to a molten state and pulled it into fibers.
The chemical and mineral composition of lunar soil is similar to that of basalt, containing a variety of trace elements. Fibers made from basalt have been widely used in high-end equipment manufacturing.
While it is not difficult to produce simulated lunar soil based on this composition, the real challenge lies in replicating the lunar environment here on Earth.
To simulate the high vacuum and microgravity conditions of the lunar environment, the researchers have been conducting the study on the materials for extreme environments since 2016. They have independently designed a spinning device that replicates the lunar environment.
In 2020, China's Chang'e-5 mission brought back lunar soil samples. Since then, the researchers used 0.5 grams of lunar soil to successfully produce a fiber approximately three meters in length and as fine as a human hair, according to the People's Daily.
Given the extremely high cost of Earth-moon transportation, future lunar research station construction will need to rely on in-situ resource.
The potential use of lunar soil fibers is to weave them into flexible structural materials, which could enhance the strength of lunar soil concrete and serve as the "rebar" for constructing lunar bases, the researchers were quoted as saying in the newspaper.
At present, the production of fibers from lunar soil is still in the fundamental verification stage, with practical applications still being some way off, said the report. ■
