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The Use Of Low-Cost ‘Balloonsats’ For Stem Education With 3d Printing, Jeremy Straub, Josh Berk, John Nordlie, Ronald Marsh
The Use Of Low-Cost ‘Balloonsats’ For Stem Education With 3d Printing, Jeremy Straub, Josh Berk, John Nordlie, Ronald Marsh
Jeremy Straub
A new technology, known as 3D printing, allows the rap-id fabrication of plastic structures of virtually any config-uration. These structures are light-weight, dura-ble and inexpensive. This paper considers the utility of utilizing 3D printing to create enclosures for ‘BalloonSats’ – small, low-cost spacecraft analog which can be utilized by students to understand space engi-neering, conduct near-space science (e.g., physics, bio-logical and other experiments) and touch the edge of space.
The Use Of 3d Printing To Enable High Altitude Balloon Missions, Jeremy Straub
The Use Of 3d Printing To Enable High Altitude Balloon Missions, Jeremy Straub
Jeremy Straub
The 3D printing technology allows the low-cost creation of structures based on user-defined configuration parameters. Unlike other plastic-forming technologies, there is no tooling cost related to the creation of a mold. Because of this, highly-customized structures can be created with a minimum production quantity of one, allowing adaptation to individual mission needs (for a single-HAB mission) or the change of the structure across a multi-unit run (e.g., to test various configurations or as part of a study requiring multiple payloads with different configurations).
This paper considers the mission possibilities enabled by the use of 3D printing for HAB structures. These …