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'3D printer' is making a huge difference in the development of spacecraft that cost enormous production costs.
Making it without the assembly process made it much cheaper, and in two months it was faster enough to build a rocket.
Korea also started developing a 3D printer spacecraft, and reporter Jeong Gu-hee reported.
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huge cylindrical structure is created when the robot arm sprays molten aluminum onto a rotating disk.
The rocket's fuel tank.
The American company also makes the engine, the core of the rocket, on a 3D printer, and has succeeded in over 300 combustion tests.
We plan to make a rocket capable of carrying 1.2 tons of cargo on a 3D printer within this year and shoot it into space.
The advantage of a 3D printer spacecraft is cost and time.
By reducing the number of 60,000 rocket parts to the level of 1,000, the rocket production period, which took six months to complete the engine, is expected to be significantly reduced to two months.
Korea has also recently entered into development.
A 3D printer created a fire-breathing burner from a rocket engine.
The metal powder was further welded and stacked.
In this way, a device that used to contain hundreds of parts can be stamped into four parts and assembled.
[Lee Ki-joo / Aerospace Research Institute in charge of small projectiles: 3D printing is actually a concept made by stacking. Since these complex shapes are stacked point by point, shapes that cannot be realized by conventional cutting methods can be realized.]
In the midst of this, China succeeded in operating 3D printers in outer space in May last year.
There is also an expectation that the moon and space stations can also use printers to make rockets.
However, the current technology remains in the production of small rockets, and the development of large-scale printers required for large rockets remains a challenge.
(Video coverage: Yang Doo-won)