SpaceX Launches 3D-Printed Part to Space
Falcon 9 launch (Credit: SpaceX)
HAWTHORNE, Calif. (SpaceX PR) — Through 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, robust and high-performing rocket parts can be created and offer improvements over traditional manufacturing methods. SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of what additive manufacturing can do in the 21st century, ultimately making the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft more reliable, robust and efficient than ever before.
On January 6, 2014, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket with a 3D-printed Main Oxidizer Valve (MOV) body in one of the nine Merlin 1D engines. The mission marked the first time SpaceX had ever flown a 3D-printed part, with the valve operating successfully with high pressure liquid oxygen, under cryogenic temperatures and high vibration.
Compared with a traditionally cast part, a printed valve body has superior strength, ductility, and fracture resistance, with a lower variability in materials properties. The MOV body was printed in less than two days, compared with a typical castings cycle measured in months. The valve’s extensive test program – including a rigorous series of engine firings, component level qualification testing and materials testing – has since qualified the printed MOV body to fly interchangeably with cast parts on all Falcon 9 flights going forward.
SuperDraco Engine Chamber
For almost 3 years, SpaceX has been evaluating the benefits of 3D printing and perfecting the techniques necessary to develop flight hardware. One of our first major successes was printing a SuperDraco Engine Chamber in late 2013. Today, SpaceX is testing the SuperDraco engines as part of its crewed spaceflight program and the Dragon Version 2 vehicle. In late 2013, SpaceX successfully fired a SuperDraco engine at full thrust using a 3D-printed engine chamber developed entirely in-house.
SuperDraco printed engine firing (Credit: SpaceX)
SuperDracos will power the Dragon Version 2 spacecraft’s revolutionary launch escape system, the first of its kind. Should an emergency occur during launch, eight SuperDraco engines built into Dragon’s side walls will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety. The system will also enable Dragon Version 2 to land propulsively on land with the accuracy of a helicopter. This will ultimately make the spacecraft fully and rapidly reusable – able to be refueled and reflown multiple times, drastically lowering the cost of space travel.
SuperDraco chamber (Credit: SpaceX)
The chamber is regeneratively cooled and printed in Inconel, a high performance superalloy. Printing the chamber resulted in an order of magnitude reduction in lead-time compared with traditional machining – the path from the initial concept to the first hotfire was just over three months.
During the hotfire test, which took place at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, the SuperDraco engine was fired in both a launch escape profile and a landing burn profile, successfully throttling between 20% and 100% thrust levels. To date the chamber has been fired more than 80 times, with more than 300 seconds of hot fire.
Through 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, robust and high-performing rocket parts can be created and offer improvements over traditional manufacturing methods. SpaceX is pushing the boundaries of what additive manufacturing can do in the 21st century, ultimately making the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft more reliable, robust and efficient than ever before.
On January 6, 2014, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket with a 3D-printed Main Oxidizer Valve (MOV) body in one of the nine Merlin 1D engines. The mission marked the first time SpaceX had ever flown a 3D-printed part, with the valve operating successfully with high pressure liquid oxygen, under cryogenic temperatures and high vibration.
Compared with a traditionally cast part, a printed valve body has superior strength, ductility, and fracture resistance, with a lower variability in materials properties. The MOV body was printed in less than two days, compared with a typical castings cycle measured in months. The valve’s extensive test program – including a rigorous series of engine firings, component level qualification testing and materials testing – has since qualified the printed MOV body to fly interchangeably with cast parts on all Falcon 9 flights going forward.
SuperDraco Engine Chamber
For almost 3 years, SpaceX has been evaluating the benefits of 3D printing and perfecting the techniques necessary to develop flight hardware. One of our first major successes was printing a SuperDraco Engine Chamber in late 2013. Today, SpaceX is testing the SuperDraco engines as part of its crewed spaceflight program and the Dragon Version 2 vehicle. In late 2013, SpaceX successfully fired a SuperDraco engine at full thrust using a 3D-printed engine chamber developed entirely in-house.
SuperDracos will power the Dragon Version 2 spacecraft’s revolutionary launch escape system, the first of its kind. Should an emergency occur during launch, eight SuperDraco engines built into Dragon’s side walls will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety. The system will also enable Dragon Version 2 to land propulsively on land with the accuracy of a helicopter. This will ultimately make the spacecraft fully and rapidly reusable – able to be refueled and reflown multiple times, drastically lowering the cost of space travel.
The chamber is regeneratively cooled and printed in Inconel, a high performance superalloy. Printing the chamber resulted in an order of magnitude reduction in lead-time compared with traditional machining – the path from the initial concept to the first hotfire was just over three months.
During the hotfire test, which took place at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, the SuperDraco engine was fired in both a launch escape profile and a landing burn profile, successfully throttling between 20% and 100% thrust levels. To date the chamber has been fired more than 80 times, with more than 300 seconds of hot fire.
The Dragon Version 2 spacecraft represents a leap forward in spacecraft technology across the board from its Version 1 predecessor. When SuperDracos are flown on a demonstration of Dragon’s launch escape system later this year, it will be the first time in history that a printed thrust chamber has ever been used in a crewed space program.
SuperDraco jet pack (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX looks forward to continuing to fine tune both the SuperDraco engines and additive manufacturing program, in order to develop the safest, most reliable vehicles ever flown.
22 responses to “SpaceX Launches 3D-Printed Part to Space”
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Deja vu!…..this comment was for you Doug – there are some repeated paragraphs in the article.
So printing can be done in days, compared with months by more established methods. Anybody know how that translates into cost savings, or not?. A single valve body occupying a printer for two days – is that cost effective?. Even if the printer itself were not too expensive, how does the cost of the source material and the energy requirements of the printer compare to casting?.
In many components a large portion of the cost is labor which once you have the programming done is effectively eliminated. Casting high precision components is normally lost wax casting which is a multi step expensive process often with specific heat loss profile requiring temp controlled furnace.
In addition production lead time costs money if you need to order and pay for parts months in advice that is money out the door before you get paid vs a couple of days before the invoice is out, fewer parts on the shelf as you can produce them quickly vs waiting months for the next one if you need to replace a faulty one in a hurry.
In addition, casting likely requires detailed inspection for voids and inclusions which don’t occur with the 3D printing process.
Energy requirements: melting just the material to be deposited (keep in mind that they’re using an Inconel alloy with a very high melting point), layer by layer, compared to melting a large crucible of material to be poured into a heated mold, followed by controlled cooling in furnaces, possibly all in vacuum to prevent air bubbles…I’m guessing the printer comes out ahead.
Material requirements…casting requires sprues, cups, and some excess left in the crucible (not to mention consumables in the form of the crucibles and other equipment), and 3D printing can achieve shapes that would be difficult or impossible to cast, allowing a part to use less material. If the printing process doesn’t unacceptably contaminate it, the unused metal powder could be recycled so only what goes into the part is consumed.
Granted, producing the metal powder is energy intensive, but there’s additional tricks you can use there, such as using a mix of powders to achieve the desired final alloy.
Also, there’s no reason printing has to be limited to a single part at a time: you can print whatever you can pack into the print volume.
“whatever you can pack into the print volume”
From the looks of the pics it seems like SpaceX is maxing out the build volume with single parts (an entire thrust chamber). GE seems to be taking a different approach with their big move into additive. They’ll be ramping up to do 45k fuel injectors a year for the LEAP engine, or 100k of various engine parts by 2020.
SpaceX might be maxing out the volume with the largest parts and with some machines, but I don’t see why you’d conclude they always do it that way, or that their approach is fundamentally different from GE’s. If they see a benefit from machines big enough to print out several thrust chambers at once…well, I suspect you’ll see them printing several thrust chambers at once. And maybe other parts *in* the thrust chamber (provided they can be extracted afterward).
Their approach is fundamentally different from GE’s. That’s not a bad thing: they are in different markets. GE bought the largest operator of EOS machines in the world. SpaceX has a few machines in-house, right? (I really don’t know, do they use an outside vendor?) The production rates for narrow-body jet engines and space-launch rocket engines will always be orders of magnitude apart. This fact alone should drive different behavior. I think the differences are interesting.
On putting smaller parts in the empty spaces of bigger parts: You have a good point, except that with metal printing there is a whole lot more support material required than with laser sintering nylon (e.g. like Shapeways). This brings more constraints on positioning parts and lots more post-processing. If you printed stuff inside the chamber, all of the parts would be welded together and to the build plate. You would have to figure out how to machine off the parts inside the chamber from the chamber wall, and you would only be able to do parts small enough to fit through the throat. Putting small parts in unused corners of the build plate would be pretty easy to do, but then you are waiting a really long time for that big build to finish to get your small part!
Yes, their eventual production quantities are different, but what *specifically* is “fundamentally different” about their approach? “Using more machines” isn’t a fundamental difference.
Parts would only weld together or to the build plate if you thoroughly screwed up your build setup. The parts are supported by the bed of unfused powder they’re embedded in, printed support material is generally not needed and no machining is necessary to extract the parts.
As for waiting for small parts…if it’s something that goes with the big one, there’s nothing to gain from getting it early, and if you’re trying to produce a large quantity while minimizing machine time, you’ll be packing the entire build volume with copies. And even if you have to wait for a larger part to finish, packing it in alongside that part is a gain over waiting for the big one to finish before starting the smaller one. Your objection is only an issue for one-off parts produced on a machine that wouldn’t otherwise be doing anything. Producing multiple parts at once when possible is overall a better use of machine time.
Hahahaha! What fantasy land are you from?
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
…just a tip…you might want to go research a subject before pretending to be an authority on it.
Those are nylon parts… try again ; – )
Research. Go do it.
Here ya go: http://goo.gl/Gs85b
Now you show me yours : – )
Figure 14 in this paper is a good illustration of what I meant by “all the parts would be welded together.” The abstract has a concise description of why the support material is required for printing metal as well. The energy input and thermal stress is just way lower with nylon, so it is not required in that process that you may be more familiar with.
So in response to the possibility of a capability you weren’t aware of and an actual demonstration of that capability, you…go to a slide show you produced over a year ago.
Interesting notion of research you have. Learn anything new?
I did learn something new. I had not seen that stacking strategy before. What did you think about the paper I linked showing the stacking strategy for metal parts? I think it’s kind of neat. Are you still confused about the different process constraints for printing nylon and metal?
Why did you link to a video of 3D systems’ nylon printing machines (SLS) instead of their metal printing ones (DMP)? Why even link to a video of their machines at all? Why not link to a video of the machines that SpaceX is using to print their Inconel chambers or valve covers?
It must surprise you to hear that your video isn’t news to me. I’ve got some SLS nylon parts sitting on my desk right now. In fact, you could even buy one of them from my shapeways page ; – ) Got any parts you’re proud of on shapeways, thingiverse or github?
I’ll admit to feeling a bit inadequate since you pointed out how stale those slides are (you’d be really disgusted to find out how long before that date the work was actually done). Now I know you must be sitting on some really cutting edge work of your own. Please don’t be modest: share a link!
Great illustration of a 3D printed metal part straight out of the machine with support structure attaching it to the build platter, and after final machining in this month’s edition of AIAA Aerospace America.
Seriously though, what type of machines, what type of parts, what materials are you printing so that you don’t have it firmly attached to the build plate and support material?
(I’m sorry if my previous reply came across as rude, but I was seriously tickled reading what you wrote because it is so 180 out from my experience)
You don’t have to take my word for it. I’ll quote the relevant part from a pretty recent article on selective laser melting a large Inconel component for you:
I apologize for my previous confusion. When you said “research” I didn’t realize you meant “google teh interwebz.”
Anyone know of any other company pursuing 3D printing of parts to this extent? Is this a case of SpaceX moving beyond simply improving existing processes and technology and into truely cutting edge r&d to provide them with the competitive edge needed to achieve their aims, i.e. total domination of their chosen markets? LOL Be afraid, be very afraid. 🙂
Cheers.
Musk says they’re using several types of printer (all from German manufacturers), so it’s not the printer tech that they’re pushing as such. But they do seem to be on the cutting edge of 3D design (have you seen the vid?) and actually making best use of the printer’s capability. I guess the printer ain’t much use without the 3D modelling software, so this is a software thing more than a hardware thing. Musk has also said that rocketry in general is as much, if not more, about software than hardware – kind of brains over Braun. Dave Masten has said pretty much the same thing.
3D design has been around awhile and SpaceX is not the only one using it but I think it is a case of SpaceX applying existing and emerging technologies (3D printing) when others are still experimenting.
The same as propulsive landing, hovering rockets have been around for decades (X33 and Nulka) but SpaceX is the first to apply to returning the rocket for use.