3D Printer in Space Produces First Tool Made From Uploaded File
The 3-D printer being used by astronauts on the International Space Station recently reached its second big milestone—it was employed to print a usable tool after a data file was uploaded from Earth that gave the printer the specifications and directions for how to produce the tool.
The astronauts created a working ratchet wrench using the printer, which manufactured the tool in the weightlessness of space as yet another test to see how such processes work in space, according to a recent post on the Made In Space Website. Made In Space, which designed and built the 3D printer in partnership with NASA, the Marshall Space Flight Center and other organizations, arrived at the ISS in September as part of a resupply mission.
The ratchet wrench is being called the first "uplink tool" of the ISS mission because it was created after the needed data file was transmitted up to the station using radio waves. "The 'uplink' is the way we communicate with the ISS crew using a transmitting frequency from Earth to the International Space Station," the post explained. "Therefore, an uplink tool refers to a tool design that was transmitted to the space station via the uplink and manufactured on-demand in space."
