Early Insertion of Additive Manufacturing on Spacecraft Components

Building upon the successful implementation of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloy components on Juno Spacecraft in 2011, Lockheed Martin continues to explore more potential opportunities for additive manufacturing technology insertion. Additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloy components take center stage aboard NASA’s Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) Spacecraft. 

As additive manufacturing becomes more commonplace at Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC), the developer of the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, key mechanical components have been created using in house electron beam melting (EBM) facilities.  These components, called the “Stow Guides”, will align the sample of the asteroid as it is placed into the vehicle’s Sample Return Capsule (SRC) to be returned to Earth.  The Stow Guides will be visible in images send back to Earth from OSIRIS-REx’s StowCam when it samples the asteroid in 2018. Prior to processing the flight stow guides, a few protoflight guide units were processed and evaluated as  engineering development units (EDU) to conduct mechanical property and microstructural evaluation. Results of EDU stow guides indicated that additively manufactured stow guides were robust, and satisfied the specific design and property requirements  This paper presents the design, development, and insertion of EBM processed Ti-6Al-4V alloy stow guides on OSIRIS-REx Spacecraft.