
About the Initiative
Texas A&M University’s Extraterrestrial Engineering and Construction Research (EXTEC) initiative is a partnership between NASA, academia, industry, and labs and facilities in the Texas A&M College of Engineering, Texas A&M School of Architecture and Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences.
EXTEC’s strategic vision is to unite expertise to accelerate readiness. The initiative activates interdisciplinary collaborations needed to accelerate the development and testing of materials and methods for on- and off-Earth civil engineering and construction solutions.
EXTEC’s ethos is pragmatic, methodic and synergistic. Our function is to discover, develop and validate applied infrastructure solutions through robust modeling, simulation and rigorous experimentation. Closing the knowledge gaps will mitigate risks and maximize mission success in lunar and Martian surface operations.

Radical Collaboration

Dust to Structures

Lunar Surface Experiments Program
The Texas A&M Lunar Surface Experiments Program (LSEP) is a step-wise program to establish the science, engineering and materials knowledge base required to inform models and methods for building and operating on the lunar surface. Lunar payload and ground-based experiments will examine the effects of reduced gravity on fluid physics, study the performance of novel solar cells and radiative coatings in the dusty lunar environment, and examine the chemical and physical reactivity of lunar soil to enable consolidation for construction.

Enabling Research Areas

- In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) materials development
- High-fidelity simulant characterization and testing (inclusive of amorphous content)
- Multiscale modeling with adaptive artificial intelligence learning at all levels
- Predictive geotechnical performance, radiation degradation
- Planning and requirements building for infrastructure
- Additive, subtractive and automated construction
- Robotics and system integration
- Materials, power, CNC for fully autonomous
- Testing of human/robotic-assisted operations
- Artificial intelligence and data science
- Sensors and embedded systems (for precision navigation and timing)
- Synthetic environments
- SpaceCRAFT VR is a high-fidelity, physics-based solar system simulator made for large-scale engineering system design, integration and collaboration.
- Planetary analog studies
Laboratories and Testing Capabilities

- Advanced Characterization of Infrastructure Materials (ACIM) Lab
- Advanced Infrastructure Materials and Manufacturing (AIMM) Lab
- Small-to-large scale structural/vibrational testing
- Soil and Unbound Materials Innovation Lab
- Hypervelocity chamber for meteoritic impact testing
- Center for Radiation Engineering and Science for Space Exploration (CRESSE)
- Aerospace Human Systems Laboratory (AHSL) (point of contact: bjdunbar@tamu.edu)
- Human-rated short-radius centrifuge (Coming soon. For information, contact bjdunbar@tamu.edu).
- AeroSpace Technology Research and Operations (ASTRO) Lab
- Interphase Transport Phenomena (ITP) Laboratory
- Land, Air and Space Research Lab (LASR)
- Aggie Satellite Lab (to build space-ready instruments)
- Innovation Proving Ground Complex (coming in 2021 for Army Futures Command)
- Autonomous operations in challenging environments
- 1-kilometer-long, 2-meter-diameter hypersonic impact and directed energy tubes
- Lunar Yard for Excavation and Construction (coming in 2021)
- Regolith test beds: High-fidelity simulants, large-scale testing (proposed)
- Regolith dust chambers for suited astronaut and rover testing (proposed)
- Extra-large “dirty” thermal vacuum chamber testing
Contact Us
For more information on EXTEC, contact Dr. Patrick Suermann at suermann@tamu.edu.
EXTEC Initiatives and Capabilities EXTEC Projects and People