Introduction
At 05:52 universal time on September 21, 2014, the company SpaceX launched its sixth resupply mission, SpX-4, toward the International Space Station (ISS), under a partnership with NASA. Arriving two days later, it was received by the crew of Expedition 41/42, which had already spent four months there in isolation. On that mission was a first-of-its-kind piece of equipment: a new technology that would allow the ISS crew to carry out in-orbit repairs themselves without needing to wait for the resupply of components from the ground. Built by the company Made in Space, only founded four years earlier, the so-called 3D Printing in Zero-G experiment placed a 3D printer on the ISS to test how the technology would behave in microgravity. Installation of the device was completed on November 17, and a calibration test conducted three days later, which indicated the need for minor modifications that were transmitted from the ground control team and resolved remotely.1
On November 24, the device was sent a digital file containing the design specifications of a new faceplate for the printer, an item that was damaged during the 400 km journey up. The next day, the finished part was removed from the printer, inspected by NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore, and installed.2 Here was a new technology that allowed parts to be made locally, remote from the normal physical supply chain, in perhaps the harshest of environments. It allowed a team of designers and engineers to send a ...