Researchers from theUniversity of North Dakota(UND)have been awarded a $750kNASAgrant to develop a 3D printed spacesuit.
Working alongside staff from theMarshall, Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers, Pablo de León, Professor and chair of UND’s space studies department, will conduct a three-year R&D project into the concept’s viability. The additive garment, which is set to be nicknamed ‘NDX-3,’ will be fabricated using a combination of flexible polymers, and eventually compared to conventional spacesuits via motion capture testing.
“So far, all pressure and spacesuits have been built using traditional sewing techniques,” explained León. “They take literally thousands of hours of very skilled sewing artisans to build one spacesuit, and they are very fragile as well. It is important to rethink the way spacesuits are made, and we have potentially found that 3D printing can help with this.”
“当我们冒险超越低地轨道时，宇航员将需要一种可靠的方法来修理和调整他们的西服。”
Transitioning from sewing to manufacturing
Over the past seventy years, spacesuits have largely been constructed in the same way, using traditional sewing techniques to stitch together pieces of urethane nylon, various metals, and wearable polymers. The process takes thousands of hours for a skilled sewing artisan to complete, and even the finished garments are ancient technology compared to modern aerospace standards.
What’s more, the suits aren’t good value for money, costing around $2 million each to make, and as they’re tailored to each astronaut, they usually can’t be reused either. UND began collaborating with NASA a few years ago to change the way spacesuits are made, and with the aim of designing an enhanced, more cost-effective alternative design.
尽管DeLeón教授及其教职员工已经从事该项目一段时间，但他们最近选择将3D打印整合到加压服装的设计中。只有当团队考虑深空探索的前景时，他们才能改用加法制造业，因此获得了NASA合同。雷电竞充值
“On Mars and beyond, astronauts won’t have the luxury of an army of seamstresses or seamsters in their planetary habitat to take care of their suits, and asking for the parts from Mission Control would take more than a year,” explained Professor de León.
“So, what we will try to do, is to build a pressurizable space suit using mostly 3D printing,” he added. “NASA has decided to fund our lab, since potentially this can change the way space suits will be manufactured in the future, and help to reduce “Earth-dependency,” which is one of the space agency’s goals.”
UND的雄心勃勃的新3D印刷空间和
在三年的NASA合同中，UND团队将通过开发和3D打印完整的服装来评估太空服设计中增材制造技术的潜力。雷电竞充值尽管研究人员仍处于设计过程的早期阶段，但他们已经对其所需的外观进行了建模，并进行了许多材料评估。
At first, the team’s design was rejected as “too green,” but they improved their techniques, printed and pressure tested parts using a range of different flexible filaments, and now NASA has requested a full prototype. As the project progresses, UND’s space department will work more closely with NASA, to pool expertise, and utilize the agency’s advanced 3D printing technologies.
莱昂说：“过去，我们非常接近NASA的中心，对于这个特定的项目，我们将需要他们的专业知识，投入和专业设备。”“ NASA数十年来一直是3D印刷的先驱。它拥有一些最复杂的设备和最好的专家，以帮助我们解决该项目期间将会发现的一些问题。”
“We will be working with the Marshall, Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers since they have expertise in several of the areas we will use for developing the prototype, and the equipment to print it.”
一旦团队创建了它们的添加剂原型，他们将进行一系列运动捕获测试，以将其性能与常规飞行诉讼的性能进行比较。鉴于服装设计用于火星，运动捕获测试将模拟外层空间的条件，从而使研究人员能够准确测量其可靠性。
Factors such as the spacesuit’s flexibility, mobility, and walking kinematics are all set to be closely monitored during, to make sure that the suits are as easy to move in as possible. In the project’s later stages, body-scanning techniques will be used to create custom-fitted prototypes, that are designed to “perfectly fit” future astronauts.
DeLeón教授总结说：“我们认为，在长时间的太空飞行中，最好的西装非常适合您并为您制作，而不是采用'一定尺寸的所有方法。”“借助传统技术，这将是昂贵且非常困难的，但是使用增材制造，您可以做到这一点。”雷电竞充值
NASA’s 3D printed predecessors
多年来，美国宇航局（NASA）委托了许多研究项目，以研究3D打印在创建太空服的潜力，并在此过程中开发了各种原型。
早在2015年，美国宇航局就宣布Z-2原型太空服将使用3D扫描和添加剂制造技术生产。雷电竞充值该诉讼本身的设计原本是由高耐用性复合材料制成的，以实现更大的移动性，并保护其穿着者免受空间恶劣环境的侵害。
More recently in January 2018,The Austrian Space Forum(OeWF), tested spacesuits as part of a month-longsimulated field mission to Mars。As part of the evaluation, scientists from 25 countries around the world traveled to a barren area of Oman, to simulate the conditions of the red planet.
Elsewhere, Raul Polit-Casillas, a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, outlined the potential aerospace applications ofchainmail-like 3D printed materials。According to the technician, the additive fabrics could either be leveraged as spacecraft shielding or scaled down to provide protection for astronauts in the form of spacesuits.
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Featured image shows one of the UND team’s previous spacesuits being tested in conditions that replicate those on Mars. Photo via Pablo de León, UND.
