First Demo of Cutting Metal in Space Scheduled for 2020
Assembling habitats and structures in space is required for enabling a sustainable human presence in space. Instead of just docking finished modules together like on the ISS, we need to be able to bolt, weld, and cut individual components to build large structures too large or fragile to be launched from Earth. Nanoracks is working to demonstrate the first ever structural metal cutting in space.
Using friction milling, Nanoracks will cut through three types of metal that are representative of the types used for rocket upper stages. The idea being that instead of letting upper stages burn-up on reentry, we can reuse them for in-orbit habitats or fuel storage. The first stage of this would be cutting the upper stage to the right dimensions.
This demonstration will use a robotic arm with a high speed milling end to cut the metal. Using just heat and pressure, the rotating bit (possibly made out of tungsten carbide) will melt and cut the structural metal. The cutting process itself does not create any loose debris (assuming the structural piece itself isn’t cut in two), making it very suitable for in-orbit construction.
Nanoracks will launch this demonstration on a SpaceX Falcon 9 towards the end of 2020. Eight Spire earth observation satellites will also be launched. Once all other payloads are deployed, Nanoracks will have between 30 minutes and one hour to complete the demonstration.
If all goes as planned, we will have direct results from the first ever structural metal cutting in space. This one small demo is laying the groundwork for large scale infrastructure projects in space.
Read more about Nanorack’s in-space outpost or the scheduled launch.
