NASA emails wrench to space, astronaut prints it out

John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Even during an age in which we are flooded with constant waves of new technology, some stories can still make you grin with delight and astonishment. The NASA astronaut who needed a wrench and so had it emailed to him to print out in 3D on the International Space Station (ISS) is one such story.

“My colleagues and I just 3D-printed a ratcheting socket wrench on the International Space Station by typing some commands on our computer in California,” said Mike Chen, founder of Made In Space, the company that made the 3D printer. “We had overheard ISS Commander Barry Wilmore (who goes by “Butch”) mention over the radio that he needed one, so we designed one in CAD and sent it up to him faster than a rocket ever could have. This is the first time we’ve ever “emailed” hardware to space.”

The zero-gravity 3D printer was used by Wilmore to make a fully-functioning socket wrench using the plans which had been digitally sent to the station from Made In Space via NASA mission control. Previously, astronauts would have had to wait months for new equipment to be flown to them on supply flights.

Mr. Wilmore installed the printer on the International Space Station on 17 November, and on 25 November he used the machine to produce its first object, a replacement part for itself.

“The socket wrench we just manufactured is the first object we designed on the ground and sent digitally to space, on the fly,” said Chen on Medium. “It also marks the end of our first experiment – a sequence of 21 prints that together make up the first tools and objects ever manufactured off the surface of the Earth.”

Made In Space plans to replace the printer with a larger version next year, and they will compare products made by the current printer with identical counterparts manufactured on earth, in order to assess how well the printer can withstand the trials of takeoff and zero gravity.

How does the process work? First, the part is designed in CAD – usually Autodesk Inventor – by Made In Space, and converted into a format ready for the 3D printer called G-code. It is then sent to NASA using a combination of in-house and NASA software. NASA transmits it to the space station by way of the Huntsville Operations Support Center which links developers and researchers on the ground with their payloads on ISS.

After travelling through space, mind-bogglingly to mere mortals, the code for the part is received by the 3D printer, which is located in the Columbus science lab on ISS where the object is manufactured layer by layer. Finally, an astronaut removes the object from the printer.

David Shukman, the BBC’s science editor, says that “looking further ahead, the thinking becomes even more radical. Made In Space says it’s been trying out possible raw materials for its printers including a substance similar to lunar soil. So in theory, a 3D printer despatched to the moon might be able to dig into the lunar surface, scoop up what is called the regolith, and transform it into the elements needed for a moon base.”

Chen concluded that: “When we do set up the first human colonies on the moon, Mars and beyond, we won’t use rockets to bring along everything we need. We’ll build what we need there, when we need it,” adding the Latin phrase Ad astra, short for: Ad astra per aspera, meaning “through hardships to the stars.”

—–

Follow redOrbit on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

redOrbit.com
offers Science, Space, Technology, Health news, videos, images and
reference information. For the latest science news, space news,
technology news, health news visit redOrbit.com frequently. Learn
something new every day.”