Last year, NASA and Made In Space teamed up to send the first microgravity-capable ‘3-D printer’ into space. This allowed them to test the feasibility of printing objects on demand on the International Space Station (ISS).

The printed objects were sent back to Earth for further tests, which showed that 3-D printing could have a huge future beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The technology promises to allow astronauts and space explorers to go further, while organisations like NASA will be able to save a lot of money on the reduction of payloads.

This development apparently left researchers in China anxious to catch up, as it was recently announced that the Chinese Aerospace Institution has teamed up with one of China’s largest manufacturers of desk-top 3-D printers — Tiertime — to try and come up with their own microgravity 3-D printer.

Guo Ge, CEO of Tiertime, said: “As a world-leading 3-D printing company, Tiertime uses constant innovation as a driving force for its development. It is one of our goals to develop 3-D printing technology that meets the R&D needs of the aerospace industry. Through this co-operation with one of China’s aerospace institutions, we are very confident that we will accomplish this goal.”

Using its UP Plus 2 3-D printer as a base to build upon, Tiertime will be looking to make changes to the printer’s dynamics to allow it to print in outer space. These changes will need to focus on the cooling system, the extruder movement system, the material feeding mechanisms, the distance control between the printer’s bed and the nozzle, and the fixation of the 3-D printer itself, so that it does not begin floating around in space.