I just saw Richard Whiting’s post about the moon mission and it reminded me of another almost revolutionary event that might occur soon. I’ve been watching this for a while and they’ve been scheduled to launch for over a year but keep pushing it back. There’s a new company, Relativity Space, that is trying to launch a new rocket made by 3-D printing. That includes the engines which have already been tested 100s of times. They own the world’s largest 3D metal printer and claim to have reduced part count from over 100,000 to about 1,000. The manufacturing time is greatly reduced because the number of parts required from outside vendors is dramatically reduced, most things are simply printed right on site. Here’s a link to the company. How cool is this? https://www.relativityspace.com/stargate Here’s a link to the current launch schedule. Don’t be surprised if it gets delayed again. https://www.spacelaunchschedule.com/launch/terran-1-good-luck-have-fun-maiden-flight/
I forgot to mention, they had a, generally, successful launch of the Terran 1 this week. Probably the most important milestone for the launch was the point just after the rocket went supersonic, something they call “max-Q”. This is the point during which the rocket is under the most extreme physical forces. Companies wanting to send payloads to space want proof that the launch vehicle’s structure can withstand the forces on it. Because this is the first 3d printed rocket to launch (over 85% of the rocket and engines by mass are 3d printed) this was not a known thing. Anyway, the launch went great, transition through max-q went great, main engines shut off (9 Aeon methane/osygen engines) went perfectly, first stage separation went perfectly but the single second stage Aeon vacuum engine failed to ignite. So overall, they got what they wanted. Because this was a proof of concept test flight, there was no pay load in the second stage. Next step, scaled up production of the Terran R, their much larger workhorse rocket. The space industry is headed for a major shake up.
I read that they might use 3D printing on the moon and Mars to make what's needed and avoid a long and expensive shipment from Earth.
Yeah, a spokesperson for Relativity Space was mentioning their interest in Mars as a potential location for its Stargate printers. They apparently developed and built the thing in house. It makes a lot of sense for remote locations like the moon, Mars, etc.