The number of 3D printed parts on board satellites is increasing with advances in additive manufacturing. Satellite stores are embracing technology to cut costs and speed up production of increasingly capable spacecraft. The progress paves the way for a future where satellites can print parts in orbit. But how close is the industry to 3D printing entire satellites?

This is a tricky question, not least because the number of parts on a satellite differs greatly depending on its size and complexity, and ranges from simple basic structures to complex semiconductors.

“Cubesat parts can have hundreds of components while larger satellites can range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands” for flagship missions such as the just-released $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope. launched, said Emile de Rijk, CEO of the additive manufacturing specialist. Swissto12.

But just five years ago, “the use of 3D-printed structures was largely experimental with very few parts carried in missions and payloads that had a good appetite for risk,” according to de Rijk.

Now, nearly every satellite built today has at least a few 3D-printed parts, he says, though most are still relatively simple mechanical support systems to hold a spacecraft’s structure together.

For Maxar Technologies, additively manufactured components have become a standard for all the satellites it builds, representing in 2020 about one-third of the components of a typical spacecraft.

The first 3D printed metal part used by Maxar on a satellite was made of titanium alloy and launched in 2016 on JCSAT-15, a communications satellite built for Sky Perfect JSAT of Japan. Maxar has used additively manufactured aluminum, titanium and plastic parts on more than 20 satellites launched since then, totaling 5,800 components in orbit.

“Maxar uses 3D printing for space manufacturing because it improves schedule agility, reduces costs and increases performance,” said Chris Johnson, Maxar’s senior vice president for space.

“It takes fewer people and less expensive equipment to make 3D printed components, which often serve multiple purposes, reducing mass, material count and overall component complexity.”

Rich Aston, chief engineer for additive manufacturing at Boeing Defense, Space & Security, said his company has applied additive manufacturing technology in spacecraft and launch vehicles, including heat exchangers, mechanisms, high performance passive microwave structures and devices.

3D printing helps Boeing “push the boundaries of what is technologically possible, creating new designs, rapidly prototyping, testing and, where it makes sense, deploying new technologies.” “, Aston said.

Boeing is looking to expand its capabilities, particularly for its Millennium Space Systems subsidiary focused on the small satellite market, where 3D printing is proving particularly suited to deploying systems into orbit faster than ever.

For smaller satellites, Aston said the company has “demonstrated that 3D-printed buses offer a much faster production cycle time and are approximately 30% less expensive than traditional bus structures.”

THE NEXT STEP

There’s “a pretty big step” between making simple structures like mechanical supports and thermally managing 3D printing, radio frequency (RF) and other more complex components on a satellite, de Rijk said. .

The semiconductor industry, for example, has invested hundreds of billions of dollars over the past 40 years to miniaturize increasingly powerful chips that underpin modern technologies.

State-of-the-art semiconductor workshops can now produce chips with 5-nanometer precision using photolithographic processes, noted Peter Guggenbach, Chief Growth Officer of Swissto12, while “3D printing works in a [completely] different world.”

Advanced 3D printing machines using selective laser melting technology are in the 50-micrometer precision range, Guggenbach said — 10,000 times less accurate than top chipmakers.

According to Dallas Kasaboski, an analyst at Northern Sky Research, the lack of standardization of satellites is also a barrier to realizing the benefits of economies of scale offered by 3D printing. and it’s not like 3D printing a rocket engine, which is probably quite simple (read: reproducible) while satellites are not yet standardized to a level that could greatly benefit from it,” Kasaboski said by e -mail.

“However, work is continuing to streamline the manufacturing process, so more material may be 3D printed as we move forward.”

MORE OBSTACLES

Even for manufacturers of small satellites, producing parts with 3D printers can require a fair amount of human operator intervention, potentially increasing costs rather than saving them.

Small satellite specialist NanoAvionics primarily uses 3D printing for testing and prototyping, according to Ernestas Kalabuckas, the company’s chief technology officer.

Although parts of the company’s legacy satellite buses are 3D printed, Kalabuckas said, “they still make up only a tiny fraction of the overall architecture.”

The biggest hurdle is cost, he said, because despite improvements, 3D-printed metal parts are prohibitively expensive unless they’re made on a large scale.

“To achieve this, we would consider larger constellations with a minimum of a hundred satellites, each with many identical parts and the satellite design/architecture already optimized for 3D printing,” he said per E-mail.

Flight legacy poses another major hurdle, as moving to additive manufacturing would require space-qualified parts to be redesigned and then tested in orbit before being used on a larger scale.

“The risk, time, and cost involved just don’t justify the rapid move to 3D printing,” Kalabuckas said.

“However, while it’s not a huge cost saving for satellite manufacturing at the moment, we are exploring the field as it could change in the next 5-10 years.”

PUSH THE ENVELOPE

Swissto12 helped Australian startup Fleet Space Technologies last year deliver what they say are the first 3D-printed metal patch antennas for small satellites.

Centauri 4, the sixth and final satellite in the Fleet Space constellation after launching into low Earth orbit in June, has four such antennas.

According to Fleet Space, which uses its satellites to connect devices in areas beyond the reach of terrestrial networks, 3D-printed antennas have allowed it to save 10 times more per kilogram of spacecraft.

In December, shortly after raising more than $26 million in a Series B investment round, the startup announced plans for a second-generation constellation it said would include the first satellites created entirely by 3D printing.

The first small satellites in this upgraded constellation, called Alpha, aim to be ready for launch in 12 months to join the six Centauri cubesats currently in orbit.

“Alpha represents a major breakthrough and the first time a satellite has been created entirely by 3D printing,” said Flavia Tata Nardini, co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space, in a statement part of the announcement.

The plans have been met with skepticism in the space industry, given what 3D printing is currently capable of producing.

“It is very unlikely that powerful semiconductors will be 3D printed in the coming years, so the satellite as such will always have non-3D printed parts,” said Guggenbach of Swissto12.

However, with around $14 million in investment from local South Australian government, Fleet Space said it would create the country’s first dedicated space manufacturing center in Adelaide to accomplish the feat.

Nardini said SpaceNews that this factory would include several multi-million dollar 3D printing machines for its audacious constellation ambitions.

“We started to focus on the RF elements (antennas, etc.) which are actually a lot [more] complex to 3D print than anything else (very complex geometry) and now we have a patent on it,” she said via a LinkedIn post.

“Then we moved on to the structure, the diplexers, and now we move on to all the electronics.”

The semiconductors planned in the Alpha satellites are “not as complex” as the smaller chips currently on the wider market, she said, but “we do indeed anticipate more powerful chips in the future. “.

Each Alpha satellite will have up to 64 3D-printed antennae, according to Fleet Space’s Dec. 3 announcement, which said this makes it capable of delivering a 16-times performance increase over its newest Centauri satellite. while being only four times heavier.

HARD ROAD AHEAD

The technical hurdles to overcome to 3D print high-performance satellites in their entirety are considerable, potentially requiring new additive manufacturing processes.

Kasaboski of Northern Skies Research compared today’s industrial 3D printing to a 1990s printer that prints one line of text at a time.

“Or, to use another metaphor, like adding layers of frosting to a cake,” he said. “The material is processed in the printer and laid in strips back and forth, over and over again. Other methods exist, but they lead to a similar conclusion.

“So you can print structures, unique shapes, make molds and models, but you can’t usually print functional ‘things’. If you’re using a special material, you can print something that’s electrically or magnetically conductive or something, but that’s very different from printing a working photovoltaic cell.

However, the lure of potentially being able to autonomously build satellites in orbit one day will likely continue to attract investment for those looking to push the boundaries of what is possible.

On Earth, manufacturers layer materials because of gravity. In space, a satellite could potentially be built from the inside out, where the first drops of material are at the very center and expand outward as they spin.

“Theoretically it could be very interesting, but in terms of application, there haven’t been many compelling use cases here yet,” Kasaboski added.

“Also, the technology is not fully standardized/proven in the field, let alone in orbit.”

This article originally appeared in the January 2022 issue of SpaceNews magazine.