News and Insights of 3D Printing and Manufacturing
Based on hot-fire tests of an Expander-cycle Integrated Demonstrator (ETID) that proved the technology and methods last year, ESA, ArianeGroup, and DLR German Aerospace Center have built and hot-fire tested a fully 3D printed thrust chamber.
On May 30th, 2020, SpaceX‘s Crew Dragon took off on top of a Falcon 9 rocket for its second demonstration mission: SpaceX Demo-2, the first with human astronauts on board. The launch took place as scheduled from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a contract with Airbus for the construction of the third European Service Module (ESM) for Orion, the American crewed spacecraft. The contract is worth around €250 million.
Elementum 3D, a developer and supplier of advanced metal additive manufacturing (AM) materials, has achieved ISO 9001:2015 certification for quality management.
Relativity Space, one of the few tech-media-darling 3D printing companies, has moved into a new headquarters located at 3500 E Burnett, Long Beach. The California company employs robotic deposition metal DED additive manufacturing to build an entire launch vehicle: the new 120,000 sq. ft. space will house both business operations and an unprecedented manufacturing facility. Relativity integrates machine learning, software, and robotics with metal additive manufacturing technology and is working to produce its first Terran 1 3D printed rocket, at the Long Beach facility.
Rocket Lab, a small satellite launch company, has announced the successful completion of its 100th Rutherford engine, the world’s first 3D printed, electric turbo-pump-fed engine. The company is celebrating the milestone, emphasizing how far it has come since it first started developing the innovative 3D printed rocket engine in 2013.
Aerospace company Relativity has signed an agreement with NASA and secured an incentive package from the Mississippi Development Authority for the expansion of facilities at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, MS. The historic facility first opened in 1961 and is today NASA’s largest rocket engine testing site.
Space X is in the process of testing the crewed version of its Dragon space capsule that will be capable of ferrying humans to and from the International Space Station. The date for the first test with humans on board(initially scheduled for July) however, will need to be moved up, as the capsule suffered a failure during the activation of its engine abort SuperDraco thrusters and – Space X just confirmed – was destroyed.
NASA technicians and engineers have qualified 3D printing technologies to help in the creation of tailored thermal protection systems for the Space Launch System. The new deep space rocket must be able to endure extreme conditions and temperatures when it launches NASA’s Orion spacecraft and cargo into lunar orbit—3D printed molds could help achieve this needed resistance.
NASA engineers are consistently achieving innovative breakthroughs with additive manufacturing. Most recently, they tested a 2,400 lbf 3D printed copper rocket thrust chamber with a composite overwrap to determine whether the part had the necessary heat and structural load resistance.