Advanced Manufacturing For The European Space Industry: 2019 Programme Update

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. The initiative has identified numerous activities which are aimed at revitalising the European industry leadership in advanced manufacturing for space applications. This is targeted at design freedom, performance improvement, cost reduction and lead time reduction (from concept to manufacturing).

In November 2015, the programme was presented to the delegations of ESA member states and this received 181 formal expressions of interests valued in excess of 150 M€ from 46 Industries representing 15 Countries. To date 31M€ have been committed by the ESA Delegations and 26 activities have been kicked-off with the European Space Industry. In this presentation an update will be provided on the progress on some of the key activities including; new forming technologies, additive manufacturing, novel ceramic and powder metallurgy materials, honeycombs and lattice structures, and high density PCB assemblies. It will also address some of the challenges of space hardware manufacturing, including low mass, small procurement volumes, complex geometries, or very high performance of the end product.