Concentrated-Solar Sintering of Martian Regolith for Landing Pads and Roads: Thermal Sizing

This paper presents a sized design for a Mars surface system based on sintering of regolith grains by concentrated sunlight in a solar furnace. A mirror concentrator that fuses surface regolith into a hard, dust-free landing pad and traffic surface. The study is SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED: all values are computed from stated assumptions and published Martian environmental data, and no hardware was built or tested. The principal computed results are concentration ratio of 850, mean irradiance W m2 of 440, mirror area m2 of 22, collected power W of 7937.6. Further results include spot area m2 of 0.0212, sintering temperature K of 1420, layer thickness m of 0.04, energy per m2 MJ of 83.75. The design is a computed study for peaceful surface operations — power supply, thermal control, radiation protection, construction and resource extraction for a crewed base — and it has no targeting or weapon application. Losses, deratings for dust and temperature, and the margin between capacity and the stated load are reported alongside the headline figures, and the limitations section states what a physical test would still need to establish.