Already ballyhooed for its disruptive 3D printer for homebuilding on Earth, Icon Technology Inc. now is going to space.
The Austin startup co-founded in 2017 by CEO Jason Ballard, Alex Le Roux and Evan Loomis announced Oct. 1 a $14.55 million federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)contract, awarded by the U.S. Air Force, to develop an automated construction system that may be used on the surface of the moon.
NASA spokeswoman Clare Skelly said in an email that the space agency is contributing “approximately $1.8 million” to the contract to “explore commonalities between Earth-based and off-Earth applications” — more specifically, “to help advance capabilities under its Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies” project.
Rounding out the contract, said Air Force Lt. Col. Tina Parker in an email, were $7.25 million in Air Force SBIR matching funds, $2 million from the Air Force Civil Engineering Center and $3.5 million from the Texas Air National Guard.
Parker is marketing and communication director for AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation and research hub that seeks to enable faster adoption of outside ideas, such as those that might come from startup founders. AFWERX in 2018 opened its Austin location at Capital Factory, the downtown accelerator, coworking space and investment fund.
Icon's automated construction system, dubbed the Olympus Construction System, will be “versatile,” Ballard said, able to build structures, such as “roadways, launching and landing pads and pressurized habitats.” Icon has named the program to develop the system Project Olympus.
Through its work on the project, Icon will help determine “the most cost-efficient way to build a permanent presence on the moon,” the CEO said. “And, the system is easily modifiable for use on Mars as well. That’s in our minds, as well: Another-planet automated construction system.”
Icon also will collaborate with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Skelly said. NASA could also award Icon additional funding.
A pair of world-renowned architecture firms, Denmark-based Bjarke Ingels Group and New York-headquartered Space Exploration Architecture, will be Icon’s partners on the project.
The Small Business Innovation Research program was created to encourage U.S. small businesses to engage in research and development, according to the program website.
William Roper, the Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, announced March 12 “a tentative combined award of nearly $1 billion in contracts to more than 550 small businesses, with almost half going to” 21 companies, of which Icon was one. Roper made the announcement during a virtual event in which it collaborated with Capital Factory.
Icon has been making waves since South by Southwest 2018 for its 3D-printed homes on Earth. It has printed a handful of homes in Mexico as well as at the Community First Village for the formerly homeless in Austin, and it is getting closer to commercializing its product at a wider scale. In August it announced a $35 million series A funding round to fuel development of its next-generation 3D printer, which Ballard said at the time would be sold to homebuilders.
Ballard said the company currently boasts three residential customers, “multiple military customers” and more than one space customers.
Icon has now created a division dedicated to space. Ballard currently is earning a master’s degree in space resources at the Colorado School of Mines.
The company employs the full-time equivalent of 43 people, Ballard said, and will hit about 50 by the end of the year. Hiring will be for positions working on the project funded by the new contract, the CEO said. Those include roboticists, mechanical engineers, a head of architecture, software operations, operations and field operations.
Ballard said the company’s revenue has grown by 300% “two years in a row.” The company is not yet profitable, but it seeks to be on a project level, he said.
“We don’t always succeed,” the CEO said. “But, if we don’t, we have a big meeting to find out why.”
Other companies working on 3D-printed buildings include We Print Houses, which printed a home in the Austin suburb of Lago Vista last year, and Apis Core.
The CEO described what he’s doing at Icon as “a dream” when asked about his exit strategy.
“Don’t tell my investors, but I’d do this for free,” he said of taking on the dual challenges of the global housing crisis and humanity becoming “a spacefaring civilization.”
“We’re not a think tank,” Ballard said. “People are actually paying me to do this. It’s incredible. I’m very happy. So, I don’t have a strong exit strategy. Things will take care of themselves if we continue to be a leader in these paradigm shifts.”
