CubeSat Fabrication through Additive Manufacturing and Micro-Dispensing

Abstract

Fabricating entire systems with both electrical and mechanical content through on-demand 3D printing is the future for high value manufacturing. In this new paradigm, conformal and complex shapes with a diversity of materials in spatial gradients can be built layer-by-layer using hybrid Additive Manufacturing (AM). A design can be conceived in Computer Aided Design (CAD) and printed on-demand. This new integrated approach enables the fabrication of sophisticated electronics in mechanical structures by avoiding the restrictions of traditional fabrication techniques, which result in stiff, two dimensional printed circuit boards (PCB) fabricated using many disparate and wasteful processes. The integration of Additive Manufacturing (AM) combined with Direct Print (DP) micro-dispensing and robotic pick-and-place for component placement can 1) provide the capability to print-on-demand fabrication, 2) enable the use of micron-resolution cavities for press fitting electronic components and 3) integrate conductive traces for electrical interconnect between components. The fabrication freedom introduced by AM techniques such as stereolithography (SL), ultrasonic consolidation (UC), and fused deposition modeling (FDM) have only recently been explored in the context of electronics integration and 3D packaging. This paper describes a process that provides a novel approach for the fabrication of stiff conformal structures with integrated electronics and describes a prototype demonstration: a volumetrically-efficient sensor and microcontroller subsystem scheduled to launch in a CubeSat designed with the CubeFlow methodology.

New opportunities offered by Cubesats for space research in Latin America: The SUCHAI project case

“…They have the potential to diminish the barriers of entry into the complex field of aerospace development. Recent studies (Mardones et al, 2012;Gutierrez et al, 2011;Piattoni et al, 2012) have been done based on state of the art digital fabrication tools for rapid development and testing of either laboratory equipment or actual functional parts that will be carried to space by aerospace designs. These types of tools not only allow rapid design and prototyping, but also increase the possible number of collaborators.…”

Development of an Additively Manufactured Microthruster for Nanosatellite Applications

“…With the inclusion of additively manufactured electrical equipment, electrical shorts will be virtually eliminated and CubeSat robustness will be increased dramatically [41,42]. been focusing on the use of titanium powder in the construction of a 3U CubeSat via an electron beam melting technique.…”

Multi‐layer archimedean spiral antenna fabricated using polymer extrusion 3D printing

“…Microstrip patch antenna has been widely used in the design of conformal antenna because of the merits of low weight, low profile, and conformal ability [2][3][4][5][6]. However, in millimeter-wave band, microstrip patch antenna suffers from the serious loss of surface wave and the long microstrip feed networks suffer from high ohmic and dielectric losses [7]. Moreover, the structure of the microstrip patch antenna is semi-open, so the stray radiation and the mutual coupling will decrease its performance significantly.…”

“…Specifically, the advent of low cost desktop 3D printers has created a surge in possible 3D printing applications. With the new design opportunities available through 3D printing, there has been interest in producing 3D printed electronically active structures, such as 3D printed sensors, Cube Satellites, and antennas [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. There have even been 3D printed polymeric parts printed in low earth orbit [3,7,8].…”

“…With the new design opportunities available through 3D printing, there has been interest in producing 3D printed electronically active structures, such as 3D printed sensors, Cube Satellites, and antennas [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. There have even been 3D printed polymeric parts printed in low earth orbit [3,7,8]. With the current interest in the field of polymeric 3D printing, producing fully functional parts, which take full advantage of the complex geometries, rapid design, and prototyping capabilities of 3D printing, is the next step to further improve the technology.…”