NASA has big plans for 3-D printing in space, where mined asteroid materials could resupply longer missions
The infamous NASA tool bag lost in space during a November 2008 International Space Station (ISS) maintenance mission left the crew with one less grease gun and no way to replace the missing tool. In a few years astronauts may be able to restock lost or damaged instruments by simply 3-D printing new ones.
NASA will test the feasibility of 3-D printing in a confined microgravity environmentearly next June when it sends a microwave-size printer to the ISS for a series of experiments producing plastic and composite parts and tools. If all goes well, the space agency plans to install a permanent ISS printer in 2015.
In the near term such a machine would let the ISS crew replicate odds and ends—plastic clips to anchor cargo, for example—without having to wait for the next resupply mission. Further in the future the space agency imagines a day when raw materials mined from asteroids could be delivered to aspacecraft or orbital lab and used as 3-D printing fodder. The ability to resupply far from Earth would give such a vessel the ability to carry out longer, deep-space missions, assuming myriad other sticking points are worked out—fuel, food and radiation exposure among them.
Test run
First things first: Astronauts will install the test 3-D printer—built by a company calledMade in Space—in the ISS’s Microgravity Science Glovebox, an enclosed 255-liter work space located in the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory module. ESA developed the work space to allow terrestrial scientists from different disciplines carry out experiments in space, aided by ISS crew members via real-time data links and video. The work space is sealed and held at a negative pressure to enable the crew to manipulate experimental hardware and samples without the danger of small parts, particulates, fluids or gases escaping into the open laboratory module.
Made in Space’s printer builds objects by first heating a thermoplastic filament and then using an extrusion head to deposit the softened material according to a blueprint dictated by a computer-aided design (CAD) file. This printing technique—commonly used by inventors for quickly prototyping their designs—creates items from the bottom up, depositing materials in layers as thin as 0.04 millimeter.
3-D printers are generally designed to take advantage of gravity and surface tension to help form layers without air bubbles or other imperfections that weaken the finished product. “In the presence of microgravity all the components of a 3-D printer begin to float around, and even fractions of a millimeter of float can be detrimental to a print,” says Made in Space chief technology officer Jason Dunn. Without going into specifics—for competitive reasons—Dunn says that his company has developed “the first 3-D printer that is essentially gravity independent.”
The Latest on: 3-D Printing in Microgravity
- Microgravity Space Manufacturing: Droplet-Based 3D Printing Shows Great Potentialon November 24, 2019 at 11:50 pm
Droplet-based 3D printing is a technique offering great potential ... This finding would be valuable for the simulating of droplet deposition under microgravity,” conclude the researchers. “These ...
- In a first, astronauts 3D-print meat in spaceon October 10, 2019 at 11:33 pm
But there are still limits to the types of food that can withstand microgravity. Anything that can produce ... the growth of meat in space for the first time, with the help of a 3D printer. The ...
- 'One small nibble for man': 3D printer makes meat in spaceon October 9, 2019 at 6:12 am
The bioprinter produced beef, rabbit and fish tissue using magnetic fields in microgravity, a Russian medical technology ... Oleg Skripochka in the station's Russian segment using a 3D printer ...
- Space station experiment makes meat in microgravity using a 3D bioprinteron October 7, 2019 at 2:04 pm
Israeli startup Aleph Farms is one of these. Aleph Farms partnered with Russian laboratory 3D Bioprinting Solutions and two US companies for an International Space Station experiment on Sept. 26 that ...
- 3D Printing in Space: Metal Printing in µ‐Gravity Shows Promiseon September 8, 2019 at 12:57 am
3D printing in micro gravity is garnering growing interest from scientists and aerospace engineers—and especially as such activity grows at the International Space Station. German and French ...
- Quest For Manufacturing Human Tissue In Space Via 3D Printer to Be Launched In Julyon June 3, 2019 at 7:03 am
GREENVILLE, Ind., June 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Two high-tech companies have teamed up to develop the first 3D printer capable of manufacturing human tissue (including, someday, organs) in the ...
- NASA: Objects 3D Printed in Space Perform Well Enough to Support Missionson November 8, 2018 at 5:41 am
According to NASA’s full assessment of the research, the influence of gravity or microgravity had no effect on the process, and the scientists behind the study are confident that astronauts will ...
- China pioneers ceramic 3D printing in microgravityon June 20, 2018 at 3:34 am
"This is a widely used 3D printing technology, but it's previously been regarded as inapplicable in a microgravity environment," said Wang Gong, director of the CAS Key Laboratory of Space ...
- China Focus: China pioneers ceramic 3D printing in microgravityon June 19, 2018 at 2:08 pm
"This is a widely used 3D printing technology, but it's previously been regarded as inapplicable in a microgravity environment," said Wang Gong, director of the CAS Key Laboratory of Space ...
via Google News and Bing News