Advanced Manufacturing For The European Space Industry

Advanced Manufacturing is a European Space Agency cross-cutting initiative which aims to capture new opportunities for manufacturing, materials, and related processes, thus creating a competitive advantage for the European Space Industry in the global market. This is achieved by restructuring the supply chain to facilitate faster and more agile entry to market and by creating performance enablers using new materials, added degrees of freedom in the design phase and novel manufacturing capabilities. The initiative has identified numerous activities which are aimed at revitalising the European industry leadership in advanced manufacturing for space applications, by enabling new designs with less manufacturing constraints, establishing novel qualified designs and manufacturing processes in Europe, serving the European Space Industry’s competitiveness

In this paper, the Advanced Manufacturing concept as well as challenges of space hardware manufacturing, including low mass, small procurement volumes, complex geometries, or very high performance of the end product are discussed. Some examples will be given which will illustrate how advanced manufacturing has promoted the development of space technology and exploration, thus enabling the creation of highly sophisticated space systems and the accomplishment of very ambitious scientific missions.