http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30549341Nasa emails spanner to space station - it's started already... wow
1-There already is a certification process that Made In Space goes through for printing stuff on ISS. 2-The 3D printer has been a big success. I guarantee it will be used in the future. There are times when an improvised solution is needed. In the past, the solution is duct tape and flight manuals, which hardly are "certified" solutions. A 3D printer, well-characterized by their work right now and with an identical printer on the ground, is much better characterized than basically all of the adhoc solutions that have been used in space (Apollo 13, repairing the lunar rover fender, STS-120's cuff link, etc, etc etc... each ISS Expedition has stories of ad hoc repairs).
And here:http://www.space.com/28095-3d-printer-space-station-ratchet-wrench.html"The 3D printer aboard the International Space Station has wrapped up the first phase of its orbital test run by cranking out a ratchet wrench whose design was beamed up from Earth.The wrench, along with the 19 other objects built by the orbiting 3D printer thus far, will travel to Earth early next year, where engineers will compare the objects with ground samples produced by the same machine before it launched, NASA officials said."We can't wait to get these objects home and put them through structural and mechanical testing," Quincy Bean, of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement. "We really won't know how well this process worked in space until we inspect the parts and complete these tests."
3-D printing in Space could be a major technology upset to the space industry. .. Once the satellite finishes production and checkout it is then transported to GEO or whatever orbit by a SEP tug or other capable tug...
3-D printing in Space could be a major technology upset to the space industry.
Next year Made in Space is going to start trial manufacturing ZBLAN on the ISS. http://www.engineering.com/3DPrinting/3DPrintingArticles/ArticleID/12662/Made-In-Space-to-Make-Fiber-Optics-in-Space.aspxThis is really cool because the material is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilogram - e.g.it could be wildly profitable even with today's launch costs.https://sites.google.com/site/cmapproject/case-studies/exotic-glasses-and-fibers
QuoteYou are correct this could be a very profitable business case. If a single dedicated Dragon flight to the ISS per year carrying the ingots and empty spools ~(1.5mt) (cost to Made in Space $130M) and then returns with the finished filled spools of fiber they could make in profit in one year from $200M to $650M each year from a single production machine.The added item here is no one else would be able to even come close to the quality of fibers or their continuous length for the cost. They could even undercut the normal Earth manufactured market putting them all out of business. At such profit levels and a general lowering of prices increasing the demand for more fiber they could lease a BA330 just to manufacture fiber. This could be easily a multi-Billion-$ Made in Space business.A single machine producing 3km of fiber per hour could produce in one year 25,000km of fiber worth from $7.5B to $75B. Number of Dragon cargo flights to support this manufacturing rate at 1.5mt per flight would be 5.5 flights per year.I think this is the type of commercialization that will really get the cost of access to space down. When the cost of accessing space becomes another cost of production, there will be a natural economic need to reduce that cost (and improve reliability) that will then allow other activities in space to be more viable.
You are correct this could be a very profitable business case. If a single dedicated Dragon flight to the ISS per year carrying the ingots and empty spools ~(1.5mt) (cost to Made in Space $130M) and then returns with the finished filled spools of fiber they could make in profit in one year from $200M to $650M each year from a single production machine.The added item here is no one else would be able to even come close to the quality of fibers or their continuous length for the cost. They could even undercut the normal Earth manufactured market putting them all out of business. At such profit levels and a general lowering of prices increasing the demand for more fiber they could lease a BA330 just to manufacture fiber. This could be easily a multi-Billion-$ Made in Space business.A single machine producing 3km of fiber per hour could produce in one year 25,000km of fiber worth from $7.5B to $75B. Number of Dragon cargo flights to support this manufacturing rate at 1.5mt per flight would be 5.5 flights per year.