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Lockheed Martin Will Use 3D-Printing to Keep Up With SpaceX

“We will print a satellite.”
Image: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin is the Pentagon’s biggest supplier for everything from missiles to satellites. But as the military tightens its belt, it's forcing the US Air Force to consider competitors, namely SpaceX, which is threatening the company’s market dominance.

To stay relevant and keep its lucrative government contracts, the aerospace defense company is embracing 3D-printing and virtual reality, high-tech manufacturing processes that are old hat for Elon Musk

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Reuters reported this week that Lockheed Martin will begin 3D-printing flight components in-house to cut down the cost of building and launching satellites. Eventually, the company plans to print an entire satellite.

"In the next decade, we will completely change the way a satellite is designed and built. We will print a satellite,” Mark Valerio, Lockheed’s vice president of military space, told Reuters. “This is real.”

The company recently secured an Air Force contract to build two new missile-warning satellites by projecting manufacturing costs at 40 percent lower than expected. Plant closures and layoffs helped bring the cost down, but the introduction of 3D-printed components has arguably had the biggest impact on the declining price tag of a satellite.

Additive manufacturing makes it possible to build parts faster and much cheaper; Lockheed currently outsources much of its manufacturing to outside suppliers. The lightweight printed parts can also be launched on smaller, cheaper rockets.

SpaceX, meanwhile, has been using the technology for over a year. In 2013, Elon Musk released a video demonstrating how SpaceX uses virtual reality design systems and a 3D laser metal printer to build flight components. Lockheed will also use VR simulators. “The equipment allows human avatars to interact with machines and streamline production processes,” Reuters reported.

Even NASA has embraced 3D-printing; the agency tested a rocket injector made with a 3D printer last year and found that it not only equaled its non-printed counterparts, it actually outperformed them by generating a record-breaking 22,000 pounds of thrust.

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Lockheed’s goal is to print an entire satellite in one go, and is currently working on using additive manufacturing to build propulsion tanks. The news website 3Ders explained how it works:

Lockheed Martin is using 3D printing to print titanium satellite parts. In the process, titanium is heated and then applied in successive layers to create almost any shape. When a product is printed using additive manufacturing, waste is minimized and cycle time is drastically reduced.

Lockheed Martin is currently using this process to develop printed satellite parts and plans to continue expanding the process in the future to complex parts and maybe even full satellites. And the light-weighted satellite would allow the government to pack on more sensors, or launch satellites on smaller, less expensive rockets.

Now, if you want to get even cheaper and even more efficient, the next step is 3D-printing structures in space. That cuts out astronomical launch costs almost completely, and replacement parts can be printed inexpensively and on demand, on the fly.

Lockheed didn’t mention plans to do this specifically, but others are already working on it. I talked to Made In Space, a Silicon Valley startup working with NASA to send a 3D printer to the International Space Station this fall.

“You no longer have to worry about launching, so it’s going to end up costing less by orders of magnitude,” Grant Lowery, Made In Space’s communications manager, told me in an interview.

The company also believes the future of spaceflight technology is building huge, space-ready components - printing kilometer-wide megastructures in orbit.

“Building spacecraft, building moon bases, building giant solar arrays—these are all things that will be aided by the ability to additively manufacture the pieces. And that’s true both on Earth and in space,” Lowery said.

While Lockheed Martin dominates the space market right now, Lowery said, new 3D printing technologies could open it up to competitors.

“I’s newly discovered country," he said. "This is really just the beginning of additive manufacturing starting to transform the space industry. So there’s still plenty of areas for small companies and large companies to throw their hat into the ring and carve out space.”