NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, in collaboration with Jacobs Space Exploration Group, has ordered a C1000 Flexmatic Ceramic Additive Manufacturing machine from 3DCERAM Sinto, a turnkey provider of additive manufacturing ceramics. It was also announced that 3DCERAM has been added as a collaborator with NASA for testing ceramic AM parts in space.
The C1000 Flexmatic will be used to create small and large samples of new and innovative materials to be tested in space and other harsh environments.
Ceramic AM parts in Space
The first components will be tested under the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) programme. The sample parts will be secured to a panel that will be mounted outside the International Space Station in order to study the effects of space on additively manufactured products.
According to reports, 3DCERAM Sinto Inc, the company’s US facility in Grand Ledge, will produce twenty sample parts for the MISSE programme, which will be launched into space in 2025. These components will be evaluated as potential ceramic materials for use on the exteriors of spacecraft in the future.
The samples will be in space for six months to determine the ability of the additively manufactured ceramic material to withstand the space environment. These tests will demonstrate the effects of in-space environmental exposures such as zero gravity and solar radiation.
According to 3DCERAM, once ceramic materials and manufacturing processes have been characterised in space, flight-worthy hot structures and heat shields could be manufactured on the C1000 Flexmatic.
The C1000 FLEXMATIC is designed to meet the industrial challenges of large-scale production. It has a large 320 x 320x 200 mm platform that meets the needs for versatility
