Orbital Matter

Jakub Stojek, CEO of Orbital Matter and Robert Ihnatisin, Chief Technology Officer, with a replica of their Replicator CubeSat at their office in Warsaw.

The Replicator mission, from Warsaw, Poland, and Berlin, Germany, based startup Orbital Matter, will launch on Ariane 6 to demonstrate a new 3D printing technology in orbit, potentially opening the door to new space structures that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, made using fewer resources.

Their new method of 3D printing has been developed to work directly in a vacuum and under microgravity, without requiring heat to be generated during manufacturing. As there is no atmosphere to cool down parts via convection cooling, like blowing on a spoonful of hot soup, it takes a long time – months – for parts to cool down just through irradiation (simply waiting for the soup to lose heat). Orbital Matter’s process prints without heat, making it much faster to build structures in a vacuum.

3D printing, or ‘additive manufacturing’, was first tested in space on the International Space Station in 2014 and has proven useful for the on-demand manufacturing of tools and spare parts. So far, no 3D printing technology has been shown to work in the significantly harsher exposed conditions outside of the Space Station, in ‘open’ space, limiting its use.

Manufacturing directly in space means large structures could in principle be built with fewer materials, as they don’t need to withstand the rigours of launch. This could mean large space-based solar power plants, communication antennas, larger telescopes for science missions and even larger space stations could all be built in orbit. Such structures could provide real benefits, from making electricity cheaper, greener and more accessible for remote areas to reducing the cost of communication and increasing access to it, furthering our general knowledge of the Universe and making space tourism cheaper and more accessible.

Orbital Matter has already demonstrated that their 3D printing technology works in a vacuum on Earth, but with the Ariane 6 first launch, they will perform their first in-space demonstration: their three-unit CubeSat (10x10x30 cm) will print a 50 cm-long beam while at an altitude of 580 km, out of a custom polymer material.