![]() "To help us get there, we plan to use additive manufacturing that could print conductors from chip to substrate." "Our goal is to have all functions packaged into a component that could be plugged into a board or instrument," Paquette said. The device would combine different functions inherent in all instruments - housekeeping, data processing, power, digitization, control and data handling, and amplification - all onto a single three-dimensional chip or stack of chips. To that end, Didion has joined forces with NASA Goddard Principal Investigator Beth Paquette, who received IRAD funding to advance a common customizable instrument electronics package called MinE Pack. "In theory, we could do a better job of packaging devices and reducing mass, power consumption, and volume" - a notable endeavor given NASA's push to reduce instrument size and fly a greater number of less-expensive CubeSats and other smaller spacecraft. "What we'd like to do is look at integrating thermal management into a functioning electronics board," Didion said. During these experiments he also demonstrated the usefulness of a battery case made of Polyetherketoneketone, or PKK, the first 3-D-printed part Goddard has flown.ĭidion is continuing to investigate how he might use additive manufacturing to integrate EHD into the electronics board itself. In addition, Didion carried out two validation experiments last year, one under variable gravity and the other during a sounding-rocket mission. Perhaps more importantly, the system can be scaled to different sizes because mechanical hardware no longer drives the size or placement of the system within an electronics box.Ī version of Didion's thermal-control device now is being demonstrated on the International Space Station. Without mechanical parts, the system is lighter and consumes less power and space. From there, the waste heat is dumped onto a radiator and dispersed far from heat-sensitive circuitry that must operate within certain temperature ranges. Unlike traditional thermal-control technologies that rely on mechanical pumps and other moving parts, EHD uses electric fields to pump coolant through tiny ducts inside a thermal cold plate. "There is room for optimism," said Principal Investigator Jeffrey Didion, a researcher at NASA Goddard who is involved in a comprehensive, multi-year effort to advance electrohydrodynamic (EHD)-based thermal control for removing heat from spacecraft electronics. One area that could potentially benefit from 3-D manufacturing is electronics, particularly the techniques that technologists use to remove heat from heat-sensitive computer chips. "We're interested in finding out how this technology can enhance NASA's ability to create one-of-a-kind instruments and components geared exclusively to studying and operating in space in other words, improve what we already do well." "We're not looking to reinvent the wheel or pursue applications that industry already can do with 3-D manufacturing," said NASA Goddard Chief Technologist Peter Hughes. For the past two years, the Internal Research and Development, or IRAD, program at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., has awarded funding to a small number of researchers who are investigating how the agency might benefit from additive manufacturing.Īdditive manufacturing, or "3-D printing," is an emerging technology where computer-operated devices literally print solid objects from powdered metals or some other material, layer by layer until they are complete. ![]()
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