Now that the International Space Station has a 3-D printer, engineers can design tools on the ground and beam them up to space.
In September, Made In Space Inc. shipped a 3-D printer to the astronauts at the space station. In November it printed its first object — a replacement part for itself. But this is the first time it has printed a specially designed tool on demand.
“The socket wrench we just manufactured is the first object we designed on the ground and sent digitally to space on the fly,” Made In Space founder Mike Chen wrote on Medium. “This is the first time we’ve ever ‘e-mailed’ hardware to space.”
Chen and his colleagues were responding to a request from astronaut Barry Wilmore, who needed a ratcheting socket wrench. Until now, Wilmore would have had to wait for the next mission to the space station to carry up the tool.
Instead, Chen and his team designed the wrench for printing then sent the design to the space station by way of NASA. And that means that astronauts can do their work more quickly and for less money.
