Tag: 3-D Printing

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3D-printed rocket engine gets tested at New Frontier

Mjölnir rocket engine hot-fire test
Flames stream from New Frontier Aerospace’s Mjölnir rocket engine during a hot-fire test. (NFA Photo)

Kent, Wash.-based New Frontier Aerospace says it has put its 3D-printed Mjölnir rocket engine through a series of successful hot-fire tests, in preparation for an initial flight test of a hypersonic drone that could take place as early as next year.

Mjölnir is named after the hammer that was wielded by Thor in Norse mythology (and in Marvel movies). The first job for this hammer would be to propel an uncrewed aerial system called Pathfinder for a series of hovering tests, currently set for 2026. Eventually, Pathfinder could be used for weapons testing or for suborbital point-to-point cargo transport.

The engine is also slated for use on New Frontier’s Bifröst orbital transfer spacecraft, which is due to fly into space by 2027. (Continuing with the Norse mythology theme, Bifröst was the rainbow bridge that connected the realm of humans with the realm of the gods.) Mjölnir, which is fueled by liquid natural gas, will also be marketed to other aerospace ventures as a standalone product.

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Outbound’s first flight test advances airplane ambitions

Demonstrator plane takes off from Oregon airstrip
Outbound’s demonstrator plane takes off from a runway at Pendleton UAS Range in Oregon. (Outbound Aerospace Photo)

Things are looking up for Outbound Aerospace’s quest to build a new kind of passenger airplane. The Seattle startup has raised $1.15 million in pre-seed funding so far, and last weekend it sent a small-scale prototype into the skies over Oregon for its first-ever flight test.

“Over the last month, everything came together, and we went out there and got the plane up in the air, and proved that it flies,” said Jake Armenta, the former Boeing engineer who serves as Outbound’s chief technology officer and co-founder. “So, it’s been a really exciting month or two.”

The demonstrator aircraft — which is code-named STeVE (for Scaled Test Vehicle) — is a remote-controlled plane that weighs 300 pounds and has a 22-foot wingspan. That’s only one-eighth of the planned wingspan for the Olympic airliner that Outbound eventually aims to build. What’s more, the March 22 flight at the Pendleton UAS Range in eastern Oregon lasted merely 16 seconds. Nevertheless, the test proved that Outbound’s 3D-printing fabrication process could turn out a flyable carbon-fiber aircraft.

“We flew this demonstrator because I got a lot of questions,” Armenta said. “People were really pessimistic about us. I got literally laughed out of investors’ rooms here in Seattle because I told people, ‘We’re building an airplane.’ And they were like, ‘You can’t do this. No one can.’”

Despite the skepticism, Outbound has been able to bring in enough investment to support what’s now a full-time staff of five, plus “about half a dozen contractors who have helped us in various ways,” Armenta said. Over the past year, Armenta and his fellow co-founder, CEO Ian Lee, have raised $500,000 from Blue Collective, a matching amount from Antler, and another $150,000 from private investors.

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Stealthy aviation startup is getting ready for takeoff

Jake Armenta and Ian Lee at Antler Portfolio Summit
Outbound Aerospace’s founders, Jake Armenta and Ian Lee, take the stage at the Antler Portfolio Summit. (Photo Courtesy of Jake Armenta)

The founders of Seattle-based Outbound Aerospace want to shake up the aviation industry with a blended-wing airplane design that takes advantage of advances in 3D printing and lightweight materials. And they’ve received a commitment of up to $500,000 to help get their idea off the ground.

Outbound aims to take advantage of the same kind of rapid innovation that propelled SpaceX to its leading role in the launch industry. So, would it be too much of a cliche to call it “the SpaceX of aviation”?

“Everyone says they’re the SpaceX of, you know, ‘Z,’” said Jake Armenta, a former Boeing engineer who’s one of Outbound’s founders and its chief technology officer. “But I really hope that we can harness a lot of that energy in our company.”

Even though Outbound hasn’t yet emerged fully from stealth mode, Armenta has recently been sharing more information about the venture and its vision for the future, thanks to a string of positive developments.

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12 companies collaborate with NASA on tech frontiers

Rocket module sitting outside Blue Origin facility in Florida
One of the modules for the New Glenn rocket sits outside Blue Origin’s Florida factory. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is among 12 companies chosen to collaborate with NASA on new technologies that could become part of future missions to the moon and Mars.

Blue Origin has signed up to work with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia and Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama on friction-stir additive manufacturing. It’ll also partner with Langley as well as Ames Research Center in California to work on a metallic thermal protection system.

“We’re pleased to have been selected by NASA to partner on developing these technologies,” Blue Origin said in an email.

NASA says Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin and the other 11 companies will advance capabilities and technologies related to the space agency’s Moon to Mars Objectives. The work will be done under the terms of unfunded Space Act Agreements, following up on an Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity issued last year.

That means no money will be transferred between NASA and its partners. Instead, NASA will make its in-house expertise available to help the companies develop products that the space agency could procure for future missions.

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Good news, bad news for Relativity’s 3D-printed rocket

Long-exposure photo of Relativity Space Terran 1 rocket's ascent
A long-exposure photo shows Relativity Space's Terran 1 rocket rising from its Florida launch pad. (Relativity Space via Twitter)

More than seven years after it was founded in a Seattle co-working space, Relativity Space launched its first 3D-printed rocket on a test mission that began with a triumphant glow but fell short of complete success.

Relativity’s two-stage, 110-foot-tall Terran 1 rocket rose from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 16 in Florida for a flight test dubbed “Good Luck, Have Fun,” or GLHF.

The startup’s first-ever launch brought frustration as well as fun.

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Relativity will upgrade 3-D printing process for rockets

Stargate 3-D printer in action
Relativity Space uses giant 3-D printers to produce components for its Terran rockets. (Relativity Space Photo)

Relativity Space, the startup that was founded in Seattle and is now building 3D-printed rockets in Southern California, has brought in a Microsoft executive to lead its growing software engineering team and expand upon its AI-powered “Factory Operating System.”

Scott Van Vliet, who headed up the team behind the Microsoft Teams collaboration platform as a corporate vice president, will oversee more than 150 of Relativity’s employees on its Integrative Software and Additive Manufacturing teams as senior vice president of software engineering. He’ll be based in the Los Angeles area.

Before his four-year stint at Microsoft, Van Vliet played a leading role in the development of Amazon’s Echo devices and Alexa voice-assistant platform. He told me that he’s looking forward to helping Relativity Space revolutionize industrial applications for 3-D metal printing, just as he helped Microsoft and Amazon blaze trails for collaborative software and AI assistants.

“Thinking about where we’re going with our Stargate family of printers, and the technologies that we’re building across the stack, we can apply similar models of machine learning to transform the way we do predictive modeling, predictive printing, and build the products that we’re going to build,” Van Vliet said.

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Relativity gets a $500M boost for printing out rockets

Tim Ellis and Relativity rocket component
Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis stands alongside a 3D-printed rocket component. (Relativity Space Photo)

Relativity Space says it’s brought in another $500 million in investment to speed up its effort to build entire orbital-class rockets using 3D printing.

The startup — which was founded in Seattle less than five years ago and is now headquartered in Long Beach, Calif. — has attracted more than $685 million from investors so far, and is said to have a total valuation in excess of $2 billion.

That rise to unicorn status has sparked comparisons to another California-based space venture, SpaceX, even though Relativity has yet to launch a rocket.

In a news release, Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis said his company is on track to execute the first launch of its Terran 1 rocket from Florida next year, thanks to existing capital on its balance sheet.

“With this new Series D funding, we will now dramatically accelerate the development of our long-term plans and look beyond first launch,” said Ellis, who co-founded Relativity Space after working for Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture in Kent, Wash.

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Boeing ships out virus-blocking face shields

Face shield
Sean Thuston, a machinist at Boeing Research and Technology, tries on a face shield. (Boeing via Twitter)

Boeing has shut down airplane production until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic, but it’s pushing forward with production of medical equipment to shut down the virus’ spread.

The company says its first shipment of 2,300 face shields, manufactured using its 3-D printing capabilities in Puget Sound and other locales across the United States, was handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services today.

In a news release, Boeing said the Federal Emergency Management Agency will deliver the shields to the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, which has been turned into a treatment site for COVID-19 patients. Medical professionals will use the shields as part of their personal protection equipment.

In addition to the shields, Boeing has donated tens of thousands of masks, gloves and other equipment to hospitals in need.

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Blue Origin turns from spaceships to face shields

3-D printing face shield visors
A worker at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash., gets 3-D printed face shield visors ready for shipping. (Blue Origin via Twitter)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture isn’t just turning out parts for rocket ships nowadays: It’s also using 25 of its additive manufacturing machines to turn out 3-D printed visors for hospital face shields.

“Our machines are running 24 hours a day, seven days per week,” Blue Origin said in a posting about the project.

The visors serve as frames for the clear sheets of plastic that serve to protect the faces of health care workers as they treat COVID-19 patients.

About 100 of the plastic visors are produced each day at Blue Origin’s factory in Kent, Wash. They’re shipped off to Stratasys, one of the company’s supply partners, for distribution to hospitals in need around the country.

Stratasys says 40,000 face shields are needed over the course of a week during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Boeing adds to its investment in Morf3D venture

Ivan Madera
Morf3D CEO Ivan Madera says the company’s vision of becoming a world-class leader in metals additive manufacturing for the aerospace industry is “truly taking form.” (Morf3D Photo via PRNewswire)

Boeing’s venture capital arm has added to its investment in Morf3D, a California startup that focuses of aerospace applications for 3-D printing.

The fresh investment, announced today, follows a Series A investment round that Boeing HorizonX Ventures co-led back in April 2018. The precise amount of the investment hasn’t been released, either for last year’s round or for the newly reported round. However, HorizonX’s investments are typically in the range of seven figures or the low eight figures.

Since its founding in 2015, Morf3D has taken on 3-D printing projects for Boeing as well as Honeywell, Collins and other aerospace companies. Its work for Boeing has focused on aluminum and titanium components for satellites and helicopters.

In today’s news release, Morf3D said the fresh funding follows a significant increase in customer demand.

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