Beginning in 2022, NASA will place unmanned Orion spacecraft into lunar orbit, followed by crewed landings, construction of lunar habitats and supporting infrastructure, and ultimately, preparation for a visit to Mars. Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is one of…
US propulsion system manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne has optimized a key component of its Reaction Control System (RCS) quad thruster using additive manufacturing and nTopology’s engineering software. Aerojet Rocketdyne’s new space engine part is now 67 percent lighter while also reducing the overall production cost…
Relativity Space has the audacious goal of 3D printing 95 percent of a rocket and sending it to orbit. Getting to space is hard. But completely reinventing how rockets are manufactured at the same time? Harder. Six-year-old upstart Relativity may nail both by the…
“…Utilising 3D printing for the Eutelsat Hotbird satellites provides major labour savings and significantly reduces the number of individual required parts, according to Gareth Penlington, the Hotbird payload manager at Airbus: “This is recognised as the first large-scale deployment of…
Lunar landers could use 3D-printed rocket engine parts that bring down manufacturing costs and production times. NASA recently hot-fire tested a pair of 3D-printed components designed for rocket engines, a combustion chamber and nozzle. They are 3D printed out of…
The International Space Station has continuously been home to astronauts for more than nineteen years. Astronauts conduct scientific research using dozens of special facilities aboard the space station, which also provides them with a place to eat, sleep, relax and…
It lets aerospace engineers develop high-quality parts much faster than they could with traditional fabrication methods July 2019 marked the 50-year anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. While the world has seen incredible technological and scientific strides since then, the broader…
It’s not clear whether the additive manufacturing supply chain will expand rapidly enough to meet growing demand for 3D-printed parts for spacecraft or launch vehicles. When companies are starting out, it’s easy for them to turn to additive manufacturing service…
Michael Hollenbeck will show how Metal 3D printing will encourage mass customisation, where the constrained volume in a satellite can be filled with a high-performance antenna that conforms to the space around it and provides lower loss and higher performance.…
Robust and refrigerator-like, the ‘Refabricator’ is poised to lead NASA’s recycling initiative for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Set to launch 2018, the machine is capable of crunching plastic parts back into raw materials, and 3D printing them…