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posted by takyon on Saturday June 20 2015, @03:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the check-out-glasses-guy-in-the-header-image dept.

According to a press release from the European Space Agency (ESA), a team of scientists from Airbus have succesfully tested a prototype 10 N hydrazine thruster, its chamber and nozzle made out of a platinum–rhodium alloy, printed with "a laser machine normally employed for making jewellery, which is the current industrial state-of-the-art for manufacturing with these metals"

The world's first spacecraft thruster with a platinum combustion chamber and nozzle made by 3D printing has passed its baptism of fire with a series of firings lasting more than an hour and 618 ignitions.
"This is a world first," explains Steffen Beyer of Airbus Defence & Space, managing the project. "The firings included a single burn of 32 minutes, during which a maximum throat temperature of 1253°C was attained.

The main reason for 3D-printing was economical:

"Considering that platinum currently costs €40 a gram [sudo rm -rf: it seems to be more like 30€], 3D printing offers considerable future savings," added Dr Beyer. "We produce 150–200 thrusters in this class per year for different customers. 3D printing should allow shorter production cycles and a more flexible production flow, such as manufacturing on demand."


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 20 2015, @06:27PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday June 20 2015, @06:27PM (#198763) Homepage

    The FBI will advertise It to you, deliver it to you, tell you what place you should attack with it, promise you 72 virgins and a lot of money to your family, then arrest you (If not summarily execute you on the spot) and tell everybody America still needs to be afraid because there are terrorists on the loose.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 20 2015, @06:58PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday June 20 2015, @06:58PM (#198771) Journal

    When I point this out, other commenters on other news sites seem to think this is a good thing.

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