Missile Defense: ¿Why should an army wait a year to get end-use parts that It could be 3D-Printed?

Defense companies are using Additive Manufacturing more often today to build parts for weapons: Aerojet Rocketdyne is using the technology to build rocket engines, Huntington Ingalls is using it to build warships and Boeing is 3D printing parts for its commercial, defense, and space products. “In particular, rapid prototyping, along with the creation of highly specific and technical parts are orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than traditional manufacturing methods,” said a recently released RAND report. 

Someday, the military will 3D-print missiles as needed, the U.S. Air Force’s acquisition chief says. In the shorter term, he just wants to use Additive Manufacturing Technology to get broken planes back in the air. The roadblock is legal, not technical: “I have airplanes right now that are waiting on parts that are taking a year and a half to deliver. A year and a half,” Will Roper, the assistant Air Force secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said in an interview.

The Air Force is already 3D-printing niche projects whose original suppliers no longer exist. The problem is with parts whose manufacturers are still around, but which no longer make the specific item in need. Today’s 3D-printers could make short work of those deliveries, but some of those parts’ original manufacturers control the intellectual property —and so far, the service lacks clear policy for dealing with that: “The reason I can’t say we’re going to do it is we’re talking about government contracts and IP, so I have lawyers that are helping me and other contracts folks,” Roper said. “But it’s an area I’m going to stay focused because I see a way for win-win. And that doesn’t happen often in the government.”

Large Format Additive Manufacturing to make end use parts for the USAF

A former grocery store in middle Georgia is now serving as Air Force Advanced Technology and Training Center.

The center employs now about 30 people and may eventually employ about 100. This lab is the second one like it in the Air Force. The first one is connected with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

The facility is a satellite operation of Robins Air Force Base. It officially opened Oct. 24, and involves 3D Printing, also called Additive Manufacturing, as a key technology. Previously, 3D Printing had been thought of primarily as something to make prototypes, but now the Air Force is looking at using it to make end use parts.

The inside of the brick building —a former Publix store in Warner Robins— is full of gleaming new futuristic machinery, with large and very large format 3D Printers and 3D Scanners as starrings: In words of Maj. Ben Steffens, “Much of the work that has been done on the base has been done in the same method for years and years. This equipment, this technology, this material that we are dealing with here is cutting edge and will bring us to the next level as far as keeping our schedule down, keeping our cost low.”

Relativity: ¿A Game Changer in Missile Fabrication Technology?

“Relativity is shaking up an industry that hasn’t experienced this level of innovation in decades. We are excited to be a part of a company that is taking a radical approach and we believe Relativity brings significant value to the aerospace ecosystem,” said Jory Bell, Investment Partner at Playground Global and Relativity Board Member.

Relativity Space already has over $1 billion worth of Memorandum Of Understandings (MOUs) and Letter Of Intents (LOIs) from leading commercial and government entities around the world. It is the only venture-backed startup selected for the National Space Council Users Advisory Group, and was recently awarded a first-of-its-kind 20-year test site partnership with NASA Stennis for exclusive lease and use of the 25-acre E4 Test Complex.

The company, which was formed in 2015, wants to fully 3D print rockets with a giant 3D printer and almost no human intervention. In the roughly three years that Relativity has been in existence, it has built what it describes as the world’s largest metal 3D printer and has completed more than 100 rocket engine test fires. Relativity uses machine learning in combination with custom software, hardware and proprietary metal alloys to fabricate over 95% of its rockets’ major components using 3D printing.

“By leveraging an all-in approach to 3D printing, we will fully automate the production of rockets. ” said Tim Ellis, CEO and Co-Founder of Relativity Space. Recently, the company announced the closing of its $35 million Series B financing, led by Playground Global and with full participation from existing Series A investors Social Capital, Y Combinator Continuity and Mark Cuban. The funding will be used to advance the company’s scalable and automated process for building rockets, from conception to production.

Industry 4.0 and the risk of nuclear proliferation

Because 3D printers can produce a wide variety of three-dimensional objects, the potential commercial and industrial applications are generating the arrival of a new manufacturing revolution, known as Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 is spreading in all the fields of manufacturing industry, and it also includes (¿why not?) defense industry. Some examples:

• The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is already experimenting with 3D printing in the manufacture of rocket engines.  (Dfr.: Kimberly Newton, “NASA Engineers Test Combustion Chamber to Advance 3-D Printed Rocket Engine Design,” NASA.gov, December 8, 2016)
• The U.S. and British Navies have been using 3D printers on aircraft carriers at sea to produce customized UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) during deployments. (Cfr.: Kyle Mizokami, “The future of America’s aircraft carriers?  Floating drone factories,” The Week, April 21, 2016; Jon Rosamond, “U.S., U.K. Navies Expanding Experiments Using 3D Printing,’ USNI News, September 22, 2015.)

But not all about 3D printing is pink-coloured, as it presents certain risks that must be taken into account. In this regard, Matthew Kroenig and Tristan Volpe assessed the risk of nuclear proliferation in their article titled “3D printing the bomb?” (Cfr.: The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3, Fall 2015, pp. 7-19) and the topic is garnering attention among policy analysts.

Much of the concern surrounds whether 3D printing represents a new way for a state-level WMD program to circumvent nonproliferation export controls, thanks to use a convenient way to produce sensitive components: The law uses to run behind the life, and today we have to face the risk of following guidelines developed by the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Missile Technology Control Regime in an era when 3D Printing didn't exist... but to be applied followed in a new era where anybody can send electronically some different CAD files corresponding to different parts of a sensitive assembly, to be printed in different 3D printing service bureaus located in different countries. ¿Impossible? Not at all: If you can imagine it, it can happen. And if the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime do not update their guidelines to the new challenges represented by the Industry 4.0, the hidden production and sale of sensitive WMD-relevant dual-use goods is not entirely hypothetical.

¿Could 3D printing change warfare as we know it?

The Massachusetts-based defense contractor Raytheon has revealed that is investing in a 3D printer that can build what they call “big structures”. ¿3D Printing to produce hypersonic missiles? That seems to be what Raytheon is working on: “There have been some fundamental game changers in the world of hypersonic missiles, so not only can you build them, but you can build them affordably. With 3D printing, you can build things you couldn’t otherwise build.” Regarding components, hypersonic engines and missiles rely on very complex and efficient networks of cooling channels, as moving at five times the speed of sound creates a lot of heating friction that requires efficient vents. The shape of such cooling ducts may be difficult whether impossible to achieve with casting, drilling and cutting..., but with a 3D printer, it is possible at all.

Now, ¿Why to print only some components... if you can print almost the entire missile? That seems to be the target when the company says “We just made a big investment on a unique machine to do some very, very big structures.” And that target seems to be very high up on their agenda, bearing in mind that Raytheon has already set up two proposals for DARPA funding: The Tactical Boost-Glide (TBG) (Essentially, a missile with a rocket motor that ‘skips’ off the atmosphere, much like a stone on the water) and the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC), a missile that shoots itself forward by sucking in huge amounts of oxygen at a speed of higher than Mach 5. Undoubtly, two projects where 3D printing fits.

Raytheon is thus, working on 3D printed missiles that can hit enemies long before they’ve had a chance to react: ¿What if they could hit a nuclear missile ready for launch before it lifts off? ¡Even complex anti-missile batteries wouldn’t be able to lock onto a missile travelling at such speeds! Then, ¿Could 3D printing change warfare as we know it? Time will say it.

The defense industry is expanding the use of 3D printing

In 2012, the Pentagon established the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown, Ohio, and many companies are using 3D printing more regularly in the manufacturing process. This technology, which makes manufacturing more agile and wastes very little material, is already being used aboard the USS Essex, a U.S. Navy amphibious assault ship. In words of Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “The crew has printed everything from plastic syringes to oil tank caps, to the silhouettes of planes that are used on the mock-up of the flight deck to keep the flight deck organized”

Actually, the Pentagon is using 3D Printers and 3D Production Systems across the military services for multiple purposes not only in the R&D labs but also in the battlefield: "When needed, an item can be printed from an electronic blueprint or scanning an existing part. Just the U.S. Navy has about 70 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, projects at dozens of sites" Winnefeld said.

Regarding private companies, defense giant Lockheed Martin is using 3D printers to manufacture jigs and fixtures used to build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: “We use hundreds of 3D-printed tools for F-35 manufacturing, such as bracket locators and drill templates,” Lockheed spokesman Mark Johnson said.