6K Additive (a division of 6K Inc that is involved in the sustainable production of materials for additive manufacturing and
Agile Space Industries, an in-space propulsion specialist, have announced that Agile is pursuing certification of 6K Additive-produced Ni625 powder for customer space applications, including critical rocket parts.
The powder is being certified for use at Agile’s manufacturing facility, and the first parts to be produced will be used in Agile’s A2200 ‘bipropellant hypergolic engine’; this is powered by a pressure-fed hypergolic bipropellant, which does not require ignition as the hydrazine derivative fuel (M20) and oxidizer (MON3) combust on contact. Taking advantage of additive manufacturing resulted in the engine being designed to weigh just 5.9kg yet produce 500-lbf of thrust.
Kyle Metsger, Agile’s director of additive technology, said: “By weight, 85% of our engine components are additively manufactured, meaning we rely heavily on AM powders that can withstand the extreme temperatures and forces generated during take-off and flight. 6K Additive allows us to additively manufacture using high-quality powders that are required for our critical applications, while also helping us meet our environmental goals through their recycling programme and sustainably manufactured powders. 6K Additive can deliver extremely consistent powder that allows our production line to run the long build times required for these complex components.
“Traditional development cycles for aerospace components can be more than two decades. However, by harnessing the speed and flexibility of AM, Agile can compress development time down to 12 months; and while a year-long development cycle still sounds like a very long time in many industries, we are showing the primes in the aerospace industry what the future looks like. Moving to the larger Trumpf TruPrint 5000 machine gave us the ability to qualify the new parameters for the machine and material simultaneously, allowing us to be ‘Agile’ in name and practice.”
Agile’s A2200 engine, which will be used on a Lunar lander vehicle, was developed to provide ‘maximum performance on demanding missions with a specific impulse of more than 318sec’. Moreover, the engine can throttle from 50 to 100% thrust in under 650 millisec, allowing it to be used for particularly demanding manoeuvring sequences that lunar missions require.