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NASA's Rocket Maker To Begin 3D Printing Flight-Ready Components
Lucas123 writes: United Launch Alliance (ULA), the company that makes rockets for NASA and the U.S. Air Force, plans to 3D print more than 100 flight-ready components for its next-gen Vulcan rocket. The company also just printed its first flight-ready component, a new Environmental Control System for its current Atlas V rocket. The ECS assembly had previously contained 140 parts that were made by third party suppliers, but ULA was able to reduce the parts to just 16, resulting in a 57% part-cost reduction. Along with cost reduction, ULA said 3D printing frees it from contracts with parts providers who may or may not deliver on time depending on whether the deem the rocket maker a priority at any given time. The company, which launches 12 rockets each year, is also hoping to use 3D printing for a more traditional role — rapid prototyping of parts. "We have a long list of [parts] candidates to evaluate — over 100 polymer parts we're considering and another 50 or so metal parts we're considering," said Greg Arend, program manager for additive manufacturing at ULA.
Fireworks in 3, 2, 1...
Not that this isn't cool, but I think Computerworld is paying a little too much deference to ULA's press release. They're not "NASA's rocket maker" or "THE company" which makes anything -- they are one among several. (I think they're smarting that people think that SpaceX is cooler than they are.)
ULA needs to 3D print whole racket to be only 50% more expensive than Space X
To get mentally prepared for tragedies and structural failures at the hands of an out of control maker community.
Packet Queue shaping.
Stereo lithography has (had?) been used for decades to prototype various 3D parts for fit and interference, though it could not make structural parts, certainly not for high temperature applications.
3D printing is a newer iteration of this technology as used for part fit and interference testing. The ability to actually fabricate the final product vs. just making resin shape prototypes is the really cool potential of this technology. It's being done now, but it will interesting to see how ubiquitous this becomes. It will be something when you see these next to the CNC machines in machine shops.
But watching 5-axis CNC machines make stuff is just mesmerizing.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
So much for ULA's space "technology." Sure, there's the whole bit about the unique demands of space, but commercial additive manufacturing's been around for ages.
I watched the spacex tour video and they run their own machine shop (80% all parts in house), but everyone says 3d printing? they do enough volume and want control but you dont say they don't use a 3d print shop, do you? this isn't junk on the slashvertisements... these are rockets for space. is the terminology correct or confusing or wrong?
thank you
This is an edge of the tide glimpse of what will happen with machine shops. Machining is already in great decline and is about to take the type of hit the printing industry has already suffered by even more so. Who will create the first fully printed, street legal automobile?
"... may or may not deliver on time depending on whether the deem the rocket maker a priority at any given time"
I bet they haven't been the best client over the past few years either.
"Along with cost reduction, ULA said 3D printing frees it from contracts with parts providers who may or may not deliver on time depending on whether the deem the rocket maker a priority at any given time."
Priority is often a matter of dollars.
But, that's why Elon makes all his own stuff from raw billets. He'd probably mine his own copper ore if he could.
Another revolution in manufacturing happened when we went from man-operated machine-tools (themselves a revolution away from craftsmen with hand-tools), to computer-operated machine tools. It is quite fascinating to watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It gets boring halfway through though.
But what's fascinating is that half a century later all we're doing is finding different ways to build the same things as back then.