How 3D Printing Is Revolutionizing the ESA's Rocket Development (popularmechanics.com) 21
"A successful firing test shows that Europe's lightweight Vega launcher is well on its way to cheaper and more efficient launches in 2025," reports Space.com, citing officials at the European Space Agency (ESA).
"3D printing has changed rocket development by greatly reducing upfront manufacturing time," argues Popular Mechanics: The new part belongs to Vega's M10 engine, which the ESA hopes to put into space beginning in 2025. As part of a "hot fire" test, the engine was fired 19 times for a combined 450 seconds. This kind of test mimics the most challenging conditions a system might face during launch so scientists can identify any weaknesses and help shore them up as development continues. Watch it here... The engine runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane, which is an environmental improvement over the solid aluminum and ammonia the current launch assembly uses.... Not only is this piece 3D-printed, but it's also been scaled up over time beginning with the smallest initial model in 2018.
After each model is printed, it's tested using technologies like ultrasound to make sure it's structurally sound, and then it's subjected to the normal battery of tests.... The ESA says the engine performed well in the tests, and it hopes to test the fully assembled development model of the engine later in 2020... The ESA says it can build more complicated designs in an overall more agile process by using 3D printing, which removes the need for special manufacturing of machine parts, die casts, and more.
The article also notes Vega is "a semi-privatized project, because a commercial service actually launches the rockets.
"Indeed, like NASA, the boundaries between private and public development have blurred in recent decades."
"3D printing has changed rocket development by greatly reducing upfront manufacturing time," argues Popular Mechanics: The new part belongs to Vega's M10 engine, which the ESA hopes to put into space beginning in 2025. As part of a "hot fire" test, the engine was fired 19 times for a combined 450 seconds. This kind of test mimics the most challenging conditions a system might face during launch so scientists can identify any weaknesses and help shore them up as development continues. Watch it here... The engine runs on liquid oxygen and liquid methane, which is an environmental improvement over the solid aluminum and ammonia the current launch assembly uses.... Not only is this piece 3D-printed, but it's also been scaled up over time beginning with the smallest initial model in 2018.
After each model is printed, it's tested using technologies like ultrasound to make sure it's structurally sound, and then it's subjected to the normal battery of tests.... The ESA says the engine performed well in the tests, and it hopes to test the fully assembled development model of the engine later in 2020... The ESA says it can build more complicated designs in an overall more agile process by using 3D printing, which removes the need for special manufacturing of machine parts, die casts, and more.
The article also notes Vega is "a semi-privatized project, because a commercial service actually launches the rockets.
"Indeed, like NASA, the boundaries between private and public development have blurred in recent decades."
What a great article (Score:2)
The Popular Mechanics article appears to be exactly the same as the Space.com one.
Nowhere in those did they say HOW they were 3-d printing rocket engines. I'm guessing it isn't being done on the $200 models you can buy at GameStop/Office Depot/Best Buy.
Cause if you can print an engine, you can print a car.
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Re:What a great article (Score:4, Interesting)
Nowhere in those did they say HOW they were 3-d printing rocket engines.
I believe it's laser sintering, [wikipedia.org] though you'd think it would be some kind of metal powder being sintered, not plastic.
Cause if you can print an engine, you can print a car.
Sure, if you want a car that costs as much as a rocket and barely works.
The real advantage I can see for 3D printing is in the very repetitive areas of a rocket engine that beg for automation, but are hard to do with other robotics. For example, the RS-25 engines from the space shuttle (and maybe SLS one day) have 1080 small pipes running lengthwise, arranged around the circumference of the nozzle, each hand brazed in place. You can sort of see them here [wikimedia.org] on the full sized image. Most engines have a similar system where the fuel is used to cool the combustion chamber and/or upper nozzle. It's a low temperature area, [wikimedia.org] not a high temperature one, so materies that can be laser sintered or melted could work. (Yes, rocket nozzles normally have icicles hanging from them during static fire tests, odd as that sounds.)
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Laser-sintered titanium parts are stronger and can withstand higher temperatures better than titanium parts manufactured using traditional methods. It's one case where 3D printed is actually better, if you can tolerate the higher expenses involved.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm guessing it isn't being done on the $200 models you can buy at GameStop/Office Depot/Best Buy.
Not yet. But those are consumer versions of what industry had 30 years ago. Give it 30 years.
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Here's the link to the original article on ESA's website: http://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Transportation/3D-printed_thrust_chamber_passes_first_tests_for_Vega_evolutions [esa.int]
Not the only one using 3D printing (Score:3)
Private-public blurring (Score:2)
This is a bad thing, and nothing worth celebrating. The boundaries ought to be bright and clear, the government involving itself only in the military applications of such research.
Spending tax-payers' monies on anything else violates the taxpayers' freedom to spend the fruits of their labors however they want.
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Indeed, like NASA, the boundaries between private and public development have blurred in recent decades
This is a bad thing, and nothing worth celebrating.
I look at this the other way around, and for the same reason as you: private development is eating into an area that during the early years of the space program was thought to be the exclusive province of government forever. This is not just making launch services cheaper than anyone thought imaginable, but is about to pull expensive, dangerous-to-participants manned programs out of the public sector. When that happens, the Luddites will no longer have any veto power over them.
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Indeed, like NASA, the boundaries between private and public development have blurred in recent decades
This is a bad thing, and nothing worth celebrating.
I look at this the other way around, and for the same reason as you: private development is eating into an area that during the early years of the space program was thought to be the exclusive province of government forever. This is not just making launch services cheaper than anyone thought imaginable, but is about to pull expensive, dangerous-to-participants manned programs out of the public sector. When that happens, the Luddites will no longer have any veto power over them.
And still better than paying Russia to launch our astronauts into space since NASA can't anymore.
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As long as it really is private — financed voluntarily by people motivated by charity, passion for science, or pursuit of profit, or whatever — it is all fine.
That thinking was a mistake — and a dangerous one, for it started the blurring being discussed. If it were for defense — Heinlein, for example, thought shooting missiles or even simple rocks from the Moon at Earth would be a deva
It's exactly what Mussolini called "fascism". (Score:2)
He described it as the unification of industry and state.
I think nowadays, the term is "privatization". Usually accompanied by tax exemptions for the rich and the dismantling of social security. Which is then called "Mont Pellerin Society", after the terrorist think tank group that grew out of Mussolini's legacy.
So ... yeah...
Too little too late (Score:2)
2025 Musk will have all the market in his pocket.
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Ariane is doing just fine. One advantage they will have for foreseeable future is by far the best launch location of all major launch services providers on the planet. Remember, the closer to equator the launch site is, the less energy you need to get things into most common orbits.
And it's pretty hard to beat Kourou.
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The closer to the equator the launch site is, the less energy you need to get things into equatorial orbits. That's largely geostationary orbit. Almost everything goes into higher inclinations, where higher latitudes have some advantage.
It's also only an actual advantage if you are limited by the capacity of the rocket, and the Falcon 9 has a decent payload advantage over the Ariane 62 even when the booster is being recovered while also being notably cheaper (IXPE is launching for $50.3M, an Ariane 62 costs
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First claim is false on merits. Second is correct. Third is just silly, as you're shipping your payload to a coastal site and not a "jungle".
What's the precision on this? (Score:2)
I doubt 3D printing can come anywhere near the acceptable precision, and you need to machine the parts to their precise sizes afterwards anyway. If only because sintering and heat treatment will have changed the dimensions anyway.
I highly doubt they can do even just 0.0025 mm / 0.0001 inch otherwise.
Relativity Space (Score:2)
Relativity Space [relativityspace.com] is completely automating the build process for space launch rockets using 3D printing and robots. The idea behind the company is that the optimum amount of automation in rocket building is complete automation. I imagine that keeping the humans away eliminates a great deal of uncertainty and variability.
From their website
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Here's a fairly detailed write up in Spectrum, the journal of the IEEE, from last year.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aero... [ieee.org]