DEVAM

DEVAM (DEVelopment and test of Additive Manufactured space hardware) is a research project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) running in partnership with various actors of the space and additive manufacturing communities.

F

our space hardware developpers: Thales Alenia Space – France (TAS-F), Thales Alenia Space – Belgique (TAS-B), Lambda-X (B) and Safran Aero Booster (Safran AB, B) and one manufacturer (3DSystems – Layerwise - B) are involved in this project. In support to the different partners, KUL (Katholiek Universiteit Leuven – B), LAAM (Lisi Aerospace Additive Manufacturing - F) and Open Engineering (B) are also implied in the project at different levels.

The objective of the project is to design, manufacture and test space hardware, starting from original requirements and optimising the complete development process taking into account opportunities and constraints of additive manufacturing. For this purpose, a maximum of co-engineering is introduced between the different harwdare developpers and the manufacturing specialists. Several prototypes and samples were built and tested in the early phases of the project in order to avoid any showstopper when starting manufacturing.

The cases studies are dealing with :

• an optical system (spectrometer derived from Exomars NOMAD UVIS instrument) that will be built in a single block that includes all alignment features with a global mass lower than the original version;
• a fluid distribution system (Ariane 6) that is completely re-designed to drastically reduce mass and integration costs;
• a large structure for mounting satellite equipement;
• an electronic box structure to improve thermal management, reduce the buy-to-fly ratio and increase allowable surface on PCB boards (by reducing structures in contact with the PCB)

The optical system will also include mirrors built by additive manufacturing and post processed by CSL’s Surface Laboratory in order to give it optical quality.

The project started in May 2016, the selection of the case studies and the review of their specifications were finalised in December 2016. The preliminary design phase and all samples and prototypes required for the feasibility demonstration were concluded by a Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in January 2018. The finalisation of the design was concluded in September 2018. Actual demonstrators manufacturing and testing will take place end 2018 and during 2019.

Aknowledgment

DEVAM is funded by the European space Agency via the GSTP programme.