California startup Made In Space is partnering with Lowe’s to launch a commercial 3D printer to the ISS next year, representatives of both companies announced. Made In Space built the printer, which is called the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF), and will retain ownership of the machine.
"It is the first hardware store in space," Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, the company’s innovation hub, told Space.com. "Lowe’s sells tools on Earth, and this way we’re going to be able to provide tools in space as well."
One Lowe’s store in the San Francisco Bay Area will also feature a replica of the AMF, as well as the section of the ISS that houses it, after the 3D printer gets to orbit, Nel added.
Made In Space hardware is already aboard the ISS; the company built a technology-demonstrating 3D printer for NASA that was installed aboard the space station in November 2014. That machine has worked well in microgravity conditions, paving the way for the AMF, which will be a fully operational, commercially oriented machine available to a variety of customers.
The AMF’s launch date and launch provider have not yet been determined, but the 3D printer should get off the ground in the first half of next year, Made In Space president Andrew Rush said.
Space-based 3D printing has the potential to help humanity extend its footprint out into the solar system, by making us far less dependent on supplies from Earth, advocates say.
NASA has high hopes for the technology, which creates products layer by layer out of metal, plastic or other "feedstock" material. (Eventually, such feedstock could be sourced on the moon or Mars, aiding efforts to colonize those bodies, proponents of the technology say.)
Indeed, the space agency worked with Made In Space to get the first 3D printer aboard the orbiting lab. NASA has also been testing 3D-printed rocket parts, and it also recently awarded a $125,000 grant to a scientist who aims to build a prototype 3D printer that makes food.
Made In Space’s long-term goals center on helping to open the heavens to crewed exploration, and the collaboration with Lowe’s represents a step along that journey, Rush said.