From Design to Reality: Additive Manufacturing for Spaceflight

Abstract

In 2017, APL’s Jovian Energetic Electrons (JoEE) spectrometer team finalized its innovative design for the instrument, slated for the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE)—the first mission to orbit an icy moon. However, the curved collimator design pushed the limits on traditional manufacturing techniques, and the most viable method, additive manufacturing, faced significant hurdles for acceptance. Engineers, scientists, and machinists from across the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) brought their expertise together to address challenges ranging from unexpected machine behavior to unreliable inspection methods to ultimately qualify and launch. By testing and refining metal additive techniques and collaborating internally and with external partners, they were able to achieve the complex geometries required for the collimator and successfully develop, qualify, and launch the flight collimator—APL’s first additively manufactured flight component—in just 2 years.