Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) Materials for Space Applications

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has recently adopted a wide variety of materials ranging from plastics, metals, composites, alloys, and ceramics to food, fabric, concrete, and cement. The growing consensus of adopting the AM system over traditional techniques is attributed to several advantages including fabrication of complex geometry with high precision, maximum material savings, flexibility in design, and unique geometries that are lighter and cheaper. Started as a technology used for demonstrators and prototypes, AM has evolved to produce functional engineering structures and parts as more and more printable materials were introduced to the AM market. Common printing techniques are stereolithography (SLA), Digital Light Process (DLP), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) or Inkjet used for printing polymers and ceramics, and powder bed fusion (SLS, SLM) and direct energy deposition (DED) used mostly for metals and alloys in the form of powder and ceramics. The use of AM for space applications can be categorized by (i) printing in orbit or on the moon or Mars, or (ii) printing on Earth, depending on the ability to apply specific printing technique in the space environment. Applying AM in-space has advantages, such as, printing tools and spare parts on-demand (thus reducing the need to fly spare parts from earth), building structures that would not survive the stresses of launch, or build habitats on planets suitable for potential colonization in the future using local materials (e.g., regolith). On Earth printing can use, on the other hand, a large variety of printing techniques that are not available for in-space usage thus allowing vast applications ranging from small parts to full satellites. Examples may include ceramic mirrors, turbine blades, space suits, nano satellites, and even thrusters, rocket engines, and fully functioning rockets. The presentation will describe various printing techniques, printed materials used in space and the development of materials to withstand the space environment as well as current and future space and planetary applications.