Additive Manufacturing of missile engines: Three interesting capabilities

The rocket that blasted into space from New Zealand on May 25 was special, as it is the first to be powered by an engine made almost entirely using 3D printing. 

Members of the team behind the Electron rocket at US company RocketLab said the engine was printed in 24 hours adding that 3D printing proved to offer three interesting capabilities over traditional manufacturing techniques:

1) The ability to produce highly complicated shapes. For example, lattice structures produced in exactly the right way so that they weigh less but are just as strong as similar solid components. This creates the opportunity to produce optimised, lightweight parts that were previously impossible to manufacture economically or efficiently with traditional techniques.

2) The ability to work best for the production of relatively small, intricate parts rather than large, simple structures, where the higher material and processing costs would outweigh any advantage.

3) The ability to produce whole systems in one go rather than from lots of assembled parts. For example, NASA used it to reduce the components in one of its rocket injectors from 115 to just two. 

US to supply FGM-148 Javelin to Estonia

Approved by the US State Department, the sale of 350 Javelin guided missiles, along with 120 command launch units with integrated day / thermal sight, 102 battery coolant units, 16 enhanced performance basic skills trainers and 102 missile simulation rounds, for an estimated amount of $55M, is expected to improve Estonia's capability to address existing and future threats, and also provide greater security for its critical infrastructure.

Equipped with an automatic self-guidance system, the FGM-148 Javelin is a portable, shoulder-fired anti-tank guided missile, suitable for operations against existing and future threats from armoured combat vehicles, in all environments. Fired from the shoulder or from a vehicle-mounted lightweight multiple launcher, the missile can also engage helicopters in direct-attack mode in theatre, and is armed with a top attack-dual warhead capability that can defeat all known enemy armour systems.