Low Cost Upper Stage-Class Propulsion project (LCUSP)

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NASA is breaking ground in the world of additive manufacturing with the Low Cost Upper Stage-Class Propulsion project. Recently, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center successfully hot-fire tested a 3-D printed copper combustion chamber liner with an E-Beam Free Form Fabrication manufactured nickel-alloy jacket. The project is a joint effort by three NASA centers – Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Marshall. The agency successfully printed the first, full-scale 3-D printed copper combustion chamber liner in 2015 at Marshall using a powdered copper alloy created by material scientists at Glenn. The liner was then sent to Langley where E-Beam Free Form Fabrication Technology, a layer-additive process that uses an electron beam and wire to fabricate metallic structures, was used to deposit a nickel-alloy onto the liner to form the chamber jacket. The Low Cost Upper Stage-Class Propulsion Project is funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development Program, which seeks to identify and rapidly mature innovative technologies that may lead to entirely new approaches for future space missions.

Published 2018-05-11 · Watch on YouTube ↗
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