Displaying news tagged: NASA

HRL Additive, a new commercial effort by HRL Laboratories, LLC, has secured the first commercial sale of its groundbreaking 7A77 high-strength aluminum 3D-printing powder to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The production plant is dedicated to producing the printable aluminum powder, designated as 7A77, the first additive feedstock registered by the Aluminum Association.

Before they were at HRL Laboratories, staff member Kayleigh Porter and intern Victor Ardulov worked on technologies for NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover that is currently exploring the surface of Mars. Porter 3D-printed ceramic parts for Curiosity’s SAM suite of tools and Ardulov was an undergrad intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on a virtual reality tool for mission planning.

HRL has received an award as part of NASA’s Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion program to develop additive manufactured (3D-printed) ceramic rocket engine components.

January 28 will mark the 30th anniversary of the day Americans looked to the sky and witnessed the unthinkable – the Space Shuttle Challenger lifting off and exploding a mere 73 seconds later, nine miles above the earth’s surface. Among the seven Challenger crewmembers who sacrificed their lives that day was Ron McNair, a former Hughes Research Laboratories physicist.

HRL Laboratories, LLC announced today that it will develop new ultra-lightweight materials for future aerospace vehicles and structures under NASA’s Game Changing Development Program. These new materials can enable NASA to reduce the mass of spacecraft for deep space exploration by 40 percent and are necessary for the journey to Mars and beyond.