Handy technology
A pair of 3D-printed copies of the glove worn by ESA astronaut Hans Schlegel while spacewalking, one lifesize and one at one-tenth scale.
These recreations were produced through fused deposition modelling of thermoplastic material at ESA’s technology centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
The gloves are an example of additive manufacturing, used routinely at ESA, with melted thermoplastic laid down layer by layer by a movable printing head, guided by a computer model.
Mission planners working at ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility have model spacecraft printed so they can examine proposed designs in three dimensions, in their own hands.
Hans Schlegel donned the original glove during his Space Shuttle mission back in 2008, when he oversaw the addition of the Columbus laboratory to the International Space Station.
