Capability and Technology

• Location: Adelaide
• Partners: Future Industries Institute at UniSA and VPG Innovation

Use: Additive manufacture of lightweight components with a very efficient buy-to-fly ratio. EBM also allows you to additively manufacture parts using crack-prone materials.

Adelaide-based advanced manufacturer VPG Innovation is working with UniSA to build a facility that will support the industry with rapid 3D printing of metals for space structures. These machines are capable of printing Titanium and Nickel alloys that are crucial in space technologies.

Six GE Arcam EBM (Electron Beam Melting) series 3D printers will be installed. Utilising a high-power electron beam that generates the energy needed for high melting capacity and high productivity, the hot process allows manufacturers to produce parts with no residual stress and the vacuum ensures a clean and controlled environment.

• Location: Melbourne
• Partners: CSIRO

Use: Manufacture of satellite and rocket structures and componentry with optimised designs and improved performance. Developing novel radiation shielding materials and structures with alloys and composites for hypersonic vehicles.

The Nikon SLM-280 2MA (Selective Powder Bed Fusion) at CSIRO’s Lab22 facility will print parts with two metals side-by-side in one continuous print. The technology is extremely well suited to aerospace and space where high performance and lightweight materials are the fundamental drivers of the designs, giving engineers the design freedom to consolidate parts to reduce mass and cost, ultimately making strategic weight decisions where needed.

This capability is the first of its kind as a production machine in Australia, in fact the southern hemisphere, and iLAuNCH is pleased to open up new manufacturing possibilities for locally made products.

Australian researchers and industry are invited to access this technology for ultra-high performance applications at CSIRO’s Lab22 Innovation Centre, one of Australia’s leading centres for metallic additive manufacturing, located at CSIRO in Clayton Victoria.

• Location: Toowoomba
• Partners: Centre for Future Materials (CFM) at UniSQ

Use: Lightweight composite structure manufacturing for space launch applications, including filament wound fuel tanks and high temperature oxide-oxide ceramic composites for hypersonic vehicles.

The filament winding facility is Australia’s most advanced 8-axis filament winder to support pressure tank research and ultra-high temperature oxide processing. The iLAuNCH Trailblazer will provide upgrades to the filament winder to resin impregnate dry fibre tows.

The ability to resin impregnate allows adjustment and refinement of resin quantity, avoids the aging process and permits usage of room temperature resins allowing fabrication of large structures without a thermoset oven requirement.

• Location: Toowoomba
• Partners: Centre for Future Materials (CFM) at UniSQ

Use: Capable of manufacturing high performance complex tubular composite structures for defence and space applications.

The dual-ring 84/60 carrier braider enables the production of advanced composite structures.

The machine is able to braid carbon, glass, Kevlar, thermoplastic and co-mingled yarns for the generation of complex lightweight dry-fibre preforms on industrial scales.

• Location: Adelaide
• Partners: Future Industries Institute at UniSA

Use: Capable of manufacturing resin, filament and metal for aerospace applications.

The UniSA Testlab comprises of 3D printing, post printing analysis and treatment facilities, and 3D scanning equipment.

The materials that can be 3D printed include thermo-plastics, photo-polymers, metals and composite materials such as carbon fibre embedded in nylon-12.

• Location: Toowoomba
• Partners: The Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences’ Hypersonics and Rocketry Research at UniSQ

Use: Design and test hypersonic vehicles under dynamic conditions.

The longest duration hypersonic wind tunnel in Australia, enabling hypersonic aerodynamics free-flight, proximal body separation, heat transfer, control, and fluid-structure interaction experiments that cannot be performed elsewhere.

Experimental work in this facility is supported through a wide range of state-of-the-art high speed flow visualisation techniques and instrumentation methods.

Location: Toowoomba

Partners: University of Southern Queensland and entX

Use: For fusing high temperature high entropy alloys and thermoelectric devices.

Partners: BlastOne and UniSQ

Use: Enhance maintenance and repair of aerospace structures and space vehicle launch infrastructure that need protection against corrosion, particularly those that exist in salty Australian seaside environments.

• Location: Brisbane and remote
• Partners: CSIRO

Use: Support space operations activities around Australia, and student outreach.

The Mobile Mission Operation Centre (MMOC) has been designed inside a B-Double trailer that can be rapidly moved around the country.

CSIRO is partnering with iLAuNCH to build a mobile facility that provides mission operations support that can be rapidly deployed and removed, reducing the need for supporting infrastructure and minimising impact.

When not used in support of launch operations, the facility can be utilised as a mobile, high-tech classroom to reach multiple audiences, anywhere across Australia, supporting:

• Teacher professional development
• Student training and outreach
• Research operations support
• Stakeholder and community engagement

• Location: Canberra
• Partners: The Australian National University, Institute for Space

Use: Unique space environmental testing capabilities, such as thermal vacuum, vibration, pyroshock, electromagnetic interference/compatibility, LEO atomic oxygen interaction, and the use of a large cleanroom for assembly and integration activities.

Successfully space qualified Space Machines Optimus satellite for launch in March 2024.