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How 3D Printing Could Help Keep the ISS In Orbit

Posted by timothy on from the extension-by-extrusion dept.

Despite all the best intentions and meticulous overengineering, some of the equipment on spacecraft like the ISS inevitably breaks. An anonymous reader poses the question "Why carry out a very expensive launch into space to resupply the ISS, when astronauts could just manufacture replacement parts themselves?" Startup Made in Space is working on a space-oriented 3D printing system to make it easy to transmit the information needed to pop out complex shapes (as might be in delicate mechanical systems), but the founders are also talking about using 3D printers to jump-start construction if humans extend their presence from the Earth to other planets (or revisit the moon).

4 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Idea by phrostie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like the general concept here, but it isn't much more sustainable than sending up supplies.
    you still need to send up the raw material.

    now cool would be to make 3Dprinters work with materials refine-able from the surface of the moon or mars.
    instead of sending a new probe every few years, send a "Maker"
    it would have two parts.
    gatherer and a factory(with the 3Dprinter).

    transmit the new plans and away it goes.

    just thinking and rambling

    call it Thrambling

    1. Re:Idea by Kn45h3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The main advantage would be to reduce the amount of spare parts they need to keep on hand in case they need them in a hurry. Additionally broken parts could possibly be melted down and reused.

  2. not everything is plastic... by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I realize that with the activities of the "for the children!" Groups out there that it is easy to presume everything is made of plastic these days, but this simply isn't true.

    I would be willing to bet money that the vast majority of the innards of the ISS's superstructure is mostly made from 2024 or 7075 aluminum alloy, sprayed with hexavalent cromium primer.

    Those are the two most commonly used aluminum alloys used in aerospace fabrication (I make prints citing them all the time at work), and for strength reasons these need to be heat treated in most circumstances after being formed or milled. A powder or paste based prototype printer just won't be able to produce these alloys, because the desired mechanical properties are a result of the metalurgical crystaline structures present in them after annealing and heat treating. That is, unless you want to ship a whole annealing oven and solution heat treatment system up there... (just so you know, that equipment isn't light.)

    For composite materials, conventional heat shaped plastics are not common either. Usually a thermally cured resin material is used, such as with phenolic, or with carbon fiber composite. Doing thse in space would be a nightmare, since not only do you deal with a sticky, honey like liquid with toxic fumes, and the curing oven, you also need a vacuum bag machine and the finished product must be sanded, creating tiny (toxic) particles to float around the ventilation system.

    I could see a prototype maching puking out ceramic paste parts prior to electric kilning, or plastic parts, but not the main structural parts made from alloy or composites.

    I don't see the justification for the added launch expense of bringing one and its consumables along.

  3. Re:Materials by Manfre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There can be a lot of waste, depending on the part that is being printed. Fill material and the chemicals required to dissolve it would account for a majority of the waste.