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										<p>For deep space exploration to become a reality, humans will need to be as self-sufficient as possible.  Since ordering supplies from Earth won't be practical, astronauts will have to make their own components for equipment and other products through additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing.</p>
 <p>But the challenges for "Earth-independent manufacturing" are as vast as space itself.  The lack of gravity, differences in time and space scales, and radical changes in temperature could hamper the process, resulting in wasted material and unusable parts.</p>
 <p>Those challenges can be overcome thanks to modeling software created in the lab of Derek Warner, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering, and successfully tested aboard the International Space Station as part of a collaboration between Cornell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), NASA, and the US National Laboratory on the ISS.</p>
 <p>The experiment, conducted on January 1, was part of an ongoing effort to demonstrate the functionality of the HPE Spaceborne Computer-2, which launched into space in February 2021 and was installed on the space station as the first commercial next-generation vehicle. .  -The state-of-the-art computer system with artificial intelligence capabilities.  The new edge computer enables real-time processing of massive amounts of data in space, eliminating the problems of long latency and waiting associated with transmitting data back and forth to Earth.</p>
 <p>Over the past year, astronauts have carried out a number of data-intensive experiments on Spaceborne Computer-2, from medical imaging to DNA sequencing.  Additive manufacturing was a prime candidate for testing because it's "absolutely fundamental to the things that NASA wants to do with deep space exploration and the trip to Mars," according to doctoral student Terrence Moran, who designed the Cornell software. .</p>
 <p>But even on dry land, 3D printing can be a fickle process full of trial and error, even for experts who have decades of experience with the technology.  Those problems are only compounded in the unforgiving environment of space.  After all, the most common form of 3D printing is powder bed fusion, in which powder is layered onto a substrate and bonded or fused together, which requires gravity.  But there are also regular hiccups with the process itself.</p>
 <p>"Say you're in space and you need a part," Warner said.  “If you were to draw the part or load a CAD file into your 3D printer and hit print, it probably won't work, simply because 3D printing isn't at that level of maturity.  You will need to adjust the printing process and parameters, so that it comes out right and you don't waste your material.”</p>
 <p>Cornell's Fracture Group, led by Warner, specializes in conducting scientific and engineering research to better understand and predict the deformation and failure of structures.  With that experience, Moran developed modeling software that can simulate how the 3D printing process will unfold for a desired component and whether the result will be of high or low quality.</p>
 <p>"Previously, this was computationally infeasible due to discrepancies in time and spatial scales and high thermal gradients," Moran said.  “So we developed the software with a physics-based model, made it portable, and uploaded it to the ISS.  It was executed successfully and the results were consistent with the results we had obtained during our investigation.  The moment and everything were the same.”</p>
 <p>At its core, modeling is a form of virtual printing, promising to save time, material and, in combination with Spaceborne Computer-2, digital bandwidth.  The software will not only benefit deep space engineering;  could be an asset much closer to home.</p>
 <p>“One of the attractions of 3D printing is that it can be manufactured locally,” Warner said.  “So what's cool about this is that while space may be the most extreme environment, for the military or on oil rigs or other places, that's going to need to be done as well.  This shows that it is possible.”</p>
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