The main objective of this activity is to mature the design, manufacturing and validation rules and processes for Additively Manufactured structural parts. The activity will not be limited to Additive Manufacturing but will address the full process chain, from early design and raw material procurement to verification of the suitability of the part(s) to survive a space mission. This will allow an in-depth understanding of the technical (reliability, verifications, controls) and economical aspects of the AM technologies for spacecraft and their payloads.

 

 

Several AM parts have now been flown in-space and system level studies point to many other interesting possible applications, not yet realized using this manufacturing technology. So far, AM has not reached a maturity level allowing an industrially-satisfactory reduction of tests and verifications to be performed when going toward the qualification of a part. This activity will gear changes in this direction. The approach is to perform the design, manufacturing and test of at least three different parts with increasing complexity (and increasing functionality):

 

• Part 1: Tertiary structural part with some geometrical challenge (such as a cleat or stand-off) will be manufactured multiple times and tested. Goal is not to prove the benefit of AM but to test the stability of the design and manufacturing process when changing e.g. service provider, industrial set-up or raw material procurement.

• Part 2: Secondary part with increased complexity (such as an antenna bracket or a mechanism) goal is to test the most promising case of AM, with the implementation of re-design of the part and test validating the material, the processes and the adequacy of the part to application requirements.

• Part 3: Complex part with high multi-functional requirements (such as a thermo-elastically constrained star tracker bracket or a mirror mount), goal is to go closer to the limits of an AM design, manufacturing and verification.

 

These parts will allow maturing the design for AM, validating the controls and verification to be implemented when manufacturing parts using AM parts and gaining confidence in the manufacturing process. It is imperative that all steps are documented, so that lesson learned can be made in order to incrementally improve the process for all future AM produced parts. This activity will allow not only to design customized AM structures but also define specifications and requirements of parts proposed and tested by AM suppliers who will be fully integrated in the activity. It is intended to have the established working procedure transferrable to other AM suppliers to gain in flexibility for part procurement in satellite systems.