Additive Manufacturing to build missiles: Relativity Space

According to Jordan Noone, co-founder and CTO of Relativity Space, powder-bed printing technologies such as DMLS are becoming common in the aerospace industry. But he noted that DMLS printers and technology are too small and limited in scale to manufacture an entire missile.

Tim Ellis (ex Blue Origin) and Jordan Noone (ex SpaceX) joined in 2015 and decided to start a competing firm. The founders distinguished their company from Blue Origin and SpaceX by setting a novel and ambitious goal: be the first to 3D-print an entire missile.

For testing purposes, Relativity leases space at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where it has completed more than 100 test firings of its Aeon 1 engine. In addition, the company will build and operate a launch complex at Cape Canaveral.

Some organizations have addressed the challenge of large-scale 3D printing and worked on solutions, but they never developed a technology to the point that it could produce components of the quality and complexity required for missiles. “Our goal was to develop a printer that could streamline complicated assemblies by printing them in one piece,” says Noone, who leads the development team. “We architectured a printer that was ideal for our rocket launch vehicle, which is a long, skinny tube with thin walls and unique material properties and inspection criteria.”

Relativity’s patented printing system features an industrial robot arm with an end effector that houses the arc- and laser-deposition technology. An array of sensors surrounds the deposition system and constantly collects data, providing the real-time control necessary to ensure that printing is done with the required precision.

The combination also allows to control thermal input sufficiently to produce the required part properties and geometries. Though Relativity currently focuses mainly on printing with aluminum alloys, the system can print any weldable material, as well as certain nonweldable materials that respond well to the process. Relativity has started exploring the use of materials such as stainless steel and nickel alloys.