It’s a little S that doesn’t look like much, yet it’s a world first. A metal 3D print has just been produced aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Printed by the Metal 3D experiment on May 30, 2024, this S announces the upcoming arrival of tools entirely manufactured in Earth orbit.
The Metal 3D 3D printer was developed by Airbus Defense and Space on behalf of ESA and is operated by Cadmos, a center dedicated to microgravity activities at Cnes. She joined the ISS on January 30 with the Cygnus NG-20 mission. It was then installed in the Columbus module, the European space laboratory, by Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen. Its objective is to show that it is possible to manufacture metal parts in a state of microgravity. This would offer the possibility for astronauts to print any tool or metal object they need, thus ensuring their autonomy both in Earth orbit on board the orbital station and in a future lunar installation.
A procedure to reinvent
For now, the printed S is just a test to make sure everything works as expected. The first real samples will be produced in the coming weeks. There will be four of them and they will have to reproduce parts already printed on Earth. These parts, each weighing approximately 125 g on Earth, will be printed in approximately four weeks, at a rate of 3 hours 30 minutes of printing per day. They will then be sent to the floor of terrestrial cows to be analyzed.
To achieve printing on board the ISS, everything had to be reinvented. Indeed, the additive printing technique, used here with metal, is the one usually used for plastic. A stainless steel wire is pushed to the printing area where it is melted by a laser, then deposited in layers as printing progresses. The melting point of metal is around 1400°C, the Metal 3D printer is completely sealed in a box in which the oxygen has been replaced by nitrogen, which is less flammable. The entire printing procedure is supervised from the ground.