Leap71
Leap 71 has agreed a strategic collaboration with robotic metal 3D printing system provider Solideon to design and manufacture multi-metre-scale hardware for space applications.
Together, the two companies will build metal structures ‘of significant scale’ with the eventual goal of enabling off-planet production.
Their collaboration commenced some months ago, with the companies working to interface Leap 71’s proprietary Computational Engineering Models (CEM) and Solideon’s Aperture robotic metal additive manufacturing technology.
LEAP 71 and Solideon have been collaborating for the past year to interface between LEAP 71’s proprietary Computational Engineering Models (CEM), which are generative frameworks for building sophisticated physical objects, and Solideon’s large-size collaborative robotic metal manufacturing technology, Aperture.
Aperture integrates multiple manufacturing steps – including wire-arc 3D printing, CNC milling and subcomponent assembly – to produce large scale components. Leap 71, meanwhile, is developing computational models that generate geometric data and process input to build sophisticated and often complex physical objects. As the two technologies are put together, Leap 71 and Solideon are targeting the manufacture of large rocket propulsion systems and components for infrastructure in space, including what they describe as the 'biggest 3D printed rocket engine' with a nozzle that is two-thirds the size of the Saturn 5 engine.
“Access to space will expand significantly in the coming years,” commented Leap 71 founder and CEO Josefine Lissner. “But how do we build the large components that will be needed to create extraterrestrial infrastructure? LEAP 71’s computational models can design sophisticated space hardware, however, limitations of the current manufacturing processes, including the small build volumes of most industrial 3D printers, are holding us back. Solideon will help us produce objects that are enormous by today’s standards.”
“A spacefaring society needs new production technologies that surpass conventional terrestrial approaches,” added Oluseun Taiwo, Founder and CEO of Solideon. “The Aperture system combines many steps into one cohesive, autonomous, and collaborative whole. We can now manufacture large-scale objects on Earth and eventually will do so in zero gravity. By tightly integrating the engineering algorithms created by LEAP 71 with our software-driven production system, we can build objects that move space technology to a new level.”
Leap 71 last week signed a three-party agreement with metal additive manufacturing firm MIMO TECHNIK and defence prime ASTRO Test Lab to develop an end-to-end workflow for the design, manufacture and validation of computationally engineered products.
