World's first 3D-printed space camera to be ready next month

In a boost to space exploration, NASA will complete building the world's first imaging telescope made entirely from 3D-printed parts by next month.
NASA aerospace engineer Jason Budinoff is expected to complete the first imaging telescopes ever assembled almost exclusively from 3-D-manufactured components by the end of September.
"As far as I know, we are the first to attempt to build an entire instrument with 3-D printing," said Budinoff, who works at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Budinoff is building a fully functional, 50-millimetre camera whose outer tube, baffles and optical mounts are all printed as a single structure.

The instrument is appropriately sized for a CubeSat, a tiny satellite comprised of individual units each about four inches on a side.
The instrument will be equipped with conventionally fabricated mirrors and glass lenses and will undergo vibration and thermal-vacuum testing next year.

Budinoff also is assembling a 350-millimetre dual-channel telescope whose size is more representative of a typical space telescope.
He is developing both to show that telescope and instrument structures can benefit from advances in 3-D, or additive, manufacturing.
With this technique, a computer-controlled laser melts and fuses metal powder in precise locations as indicated by a 3-D computer-aided design (CAD) model.

Because components are built layer by layer, it is possible to design internal features and passages that could not be cast or machined using more traditional manufacturing approaches.
"When we build telescopes for science instruments, it usually involves hundreds of pieces. These components are complex and very expensive to build. But with 3-D printing, we can reduce the overall number of parts and make them with nearly arbitrary geometries. We're not limited by traditional mill- and lathe-fabrication operations," said Budinoff.
In particular, the two-inch instrument design involves the fabrication of four different pieces made from powdered aluminium and titanium.
A comparable, traditionally manufactured camera would require between five and 10 times the number of parts, he said.

The instrument's baffling - the component that helps reduce stray light in telescopes - is angled in a pattern that instrument builders cannot create with traditional manufacturing approaches in a single piece.