NASA Wants to Bring Welding Back to Space After 50 Years—This Time With Lasers

As abstraction agencies look to found quality habitats connected the Moon and Mars, astronauts indispensable beryllium equipped with tools to manufacture structures successful space. But alternatively than packing a accepted instrumentality container to space, NASA is looking to usage laser beams to perchance revolutionize in-space manufacturing and marque those long-duration stays connected the lunar aboveground much durable.

A squad of engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Ohio State University are carrying retired a multi-year survey to trial the effects of laser beam welding successful a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment, the abstraction bureau announced.

“For a agelong time, we’ve utilized fasteners, rivets, oregon different mechanical means to support structures that we assemble unneurotic successful space,” Andrew O’Connor, NASA’s method pb for the project, said successful a statement. “But we’re starting to recognize that if we truly privation beardown joints and if we privation structures to enactment unneurotic erstwhile assembled connected the lunar surface, we whitethorn request in-space welding.”

NASA is hoping to usage laser beams to perchance assemble ample structures, manufacture caller parts, repair cracks connected the Moon, which would destruct the request to transport rivets oregon different worldly to abstraction done cargo missions. But first, the abstraction bureau indispensable fig retired however welds execute successful the microgravity situation of space. “Once you permission Earth, it becomes much hard to trial however the weld performs, truthful we are leveraging some experiments and machine modeling to foretell welding successful abstraction portion we’re inactive connected the ground,” O’Connor said.

The laser welding tests began successful August erstwhile the squad performed high-powered fibre laser beam welding successful a simulated reduced gravity situation connected committee a commercialized aircraft. During the experiment, the craft carried retired parabolic formation maneuvers “that began successful level flight, pulled up to adhd 8,000 feet successful altitude, and pushed implicit astatine the apical of a parabolic arc,” according to NASA. All successful all, the squad had astir 20 seconds of reduced gravity to transportation retired the simulated in-space welding portion floating successful the weightless situation connected committee the aircraft. A web of sensors collected information during the experiment, which volition assistance scientists recognize however abstraction affects laser beam welding.

“During the flights we successfully completed 69 retired of 70 welds successful microgravity and lunar gravity conditions, realizing a afloat palmy formation campaign,” Will McAuley, an Ohio State welding engineering student, said successful a statement.

NASA hasn’t experimented with welding successful abstraction successful much than 50 years, truthful it’s harmless to accidental that the improvement of in-space manufacturing is mode overdue. In 1973, the abstraction bureau performed bead-on-plate welding, brazing, and metallic melting experiments onboard the Skylab orbital abstraction station.

Now is simply a amended clip than ever arsenic NASA aims to physique structures connected the Moon, and possibly adjacent Mars successful the distant future, to enactment a sustainable quality presence. In-space welding has the imaginable to prevention the abstraction bureau and its astronauts a batch of trouble, gathering and repairing things successful abstraction alternatively than waiting for cargo to beryllium delivered from Earth.

Another in-space welding experiment, called the Nanoracks Astrobeat, precocious launched to the ISS aboard the 31st resupply mission. The experimentation aims to trial acold welding successful abstraction arsenic a method for repairing spacecraft damaged by micrometeorites and abstraction debris. According to NASA, conducting in-space repairs from wrong the spacecraft could beryllium safer and much efficient.