Is 3D printing smooth enough to make lightweight parts for use in space? The European Space Agency wants to find out.

“Extremely complex parts can be printed and made as light as possible, but there’s a catch: 3D printing tends to end up with rougher surfaces than their traditional counterparts,” according to the agency’s website. This might not trouble us on Earth, but the roughness could be a problem in space, so the project will assess 3D printing of “typical satellite materials” such as aluminium, titanium and stainless steel.

“When most people talk about 3D printing they are talking about printing plastic parts, but here they are talking about printing high-performance functional metal parts,” says Dr David McKeown, an engineer at UCD who carries out research with the European Space Agency but is not involved in this project.

“The main advantage is mass reduction, because you can make parts in one piece that before would be many pieces joined together, with each joint adding mass, and each extra bit of mass means extra fuel is required, adding extra cost.”

But how about 3D printing in space? Other researchers are looking at how people could 3D print with plastic aboard spacecraft to make objects for experiments and replacements for broken parts, and there’s even a concept of using 3D printing on the moon, says McKeown. “The moon rock would become the raw material and a binder would be added to create solid objects.”