Meteorite as raw material for Direct Metal Printing: A proof of concept study Karel Lietaert a, b, * , Lore Thijs a , Bram Neirinck a , Thomas Lapauw b, c , Brian Morrison d , Chris Lewicki e , Jonas Van Vaerenbergh a a 3D Systems LayerWise NV, Grauwmeer 14, 3001 Leuven, Belgium b KU Leuven Department of Materials Engineering, Kasteelpark Arenberg 44 pb2450, 3001 Leuven, Belgium c Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK-CEN, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium d ATI Powder Metals Robinson Operations, 6515 Steubenville Pike, Pittsburgh, PA 15205-1005, USA e Planetary Resources, Inc., 6742 185th Ave, NE Redmond, WA 98052, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Additive manufacturing Laser powder bed manufacturing Direct metal printing Asteroid mining Meteorite In-situ resource utilization ABSTRACT Asteroid mining as such is not a new concept, as it has been described in science fiction for more than a century and some of its aspects have been studied by academia for more than 30 years. Recently, there is a renewed interest in this subject due the more and more concrete plans for long-duration space missions and the need for resources to support industrial activity in space. The use of locally available resources would greatly improve the economics and sustainability of such missions. Due to its economy in material, use of additive manufacturing (AM) provides an interesting route to valorize these resources for the production of spare parts, tools and large- scale structures optimized for their local microgravity environment. Proof of concept has already been provided for AM of moon regolith. In this paper the concept of In-Situ Resource Utilization is extended towards the pro- duction of metallic objects using powdered iron meteorite as raw material. The meteorite-based powder was used to produce a structural part but further research is needed to obtain a high density part without microcracks. 1. Introduction If the standard of living all around the world continues to increase as it has done the last decades, there will be an ever increasing need for resources. This means that prices for the scarcest resources will rise and that mining of these elements will happen at more and more marginal orebodies. As a result, the cost of mining these elements will rise. At some point in the future, it could become profitable to start mining much richer orebodies on asteroids and ship processed products to Earth. Some of the products mined in space will also be used to support activities in space and include rocket fuel, life support, and raw materials for in-space manufacturing. Asteroid mining is not a new concept: different aspects have been studied by academia, there is commercial activity in this field and different space agencies have shown interest. Andrews et al. sketch a general overview of an asteroid mining system and discuss the readiness level of different technologies involved. They also discuss the profit- ability of asteroid mining and conclude that a discounted return on in- vestment of 35% can be expected on a 20 year time horizon [1]. The United States and other countries have recognized the right of private citizens to own resources they obtain from asteroids and non-government organizations are working to develop industry standards to assist in the stability of operations [2]. Probst et al. outline a method for the selection of a mission concept for asteroid mining in Ref. [3]. Other researchers present a novel way to find metal-rich asteroids or calculate how many assay probes will be needed to find an ore-rich asteroid [4], [5]. There is not only academic interest in Asteroid Mining; at least two companies are currently active in this field: Planetary Resources and Deep Space In- dustries. The recent interest from academia, several companies and space agencies (NASA [6], DLR [3], JAXA [7]) shows that asteroid mining is relevant and has a lot of potential. Three properties that are key for the successful application of Addi- tive Manufacturing (AM) in aerospace industry are (i) its efficient use of (high value) material, (ii) its potential to manufacture low-weight, high performance, structures and (iii) its potential to manufacture objects locally (factory in a box) [8]. The latter has been touched in several publications where e.g. AM of lunar regolith to support human activities on the moon [9–12] or AM of surgical instruments during long-duration space missions [13] are discussed. The use of AM for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) has also been considered in the asteroid mining literature [6] but so far, no proof of concept study on this subject has been published. This research provides a proof of concept for laser AM of * Corresponding author. 3D Systems LayerWise NV, Grauwmeer 14, 3001 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail address: karel.lietaert@3dsystems.com (K. Lietaert). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Acta Astronautica journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.11.027 Received 24 July 2017; Received in revised form 10 October 2017; Accepted 22 November 2017 Available online 23 November 2017 0094-5765/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IAA. Acta Astronautica 143 (2018) 76–81