Space-station builder Voyager Space and their subsidiary Nanoracks announced that they worked with Maxar to perform a cutting-edge experiment that was recently launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-5 rideshare mission. The experiment? Cutting metal without edges and the first results are in.
Outpost Mars Demo-1
Nanoracks’ experiment, Outpost Mars Demo-1 (OMD-1), is a completely-sealed experimental module that contains some small pieces of steel to cut, and a custom-made apparatus that used friction milling in order to cut them. It is a big departure from how metal cutting is done on Earth, and it could have a big impact on both space-based manufacturing and the overall condition of low Earth orbit.
David Marsh, Nanoracks’ Strategic Lead for the Outpost Program, explained why they were testing the new technique by attaching it to the second stage of Transporter-5, why it had to be kept in a sealed metal box, and why this experiment mattered so much.
Marsh said that Nanoracks is “a space station company…we know what it takes to bring anything to space, whether that’s a student project or a cutting edge robotic arm.” It made them a natural fit for Voyager Space, who are working on their upcoming private Starlab space station. Voyager acquired them in 2019.
Nanoracks’ Outpost Mars Demo-1 is both an experiment and a proof of concept. The “Mars” in its name isn’t a reference to the planet, but an acronym: Mars actually stands for “Multiple Accommodation Research System,” which Marsh described as “a system and an approach that allows us to rapidly demonstrate other technologies.” This initial test is a proof of concept for Mars, and Marsh said that there would be more to come.
OMD-1 uses friction milling, which Marsh said is “basically spinning a drill bit very fast and using it to superheat the metal that it’s touching at the contact point.” As the bit is moved, the metal is “pushed aside, like the prow of a ship cutting through water, and the metal cools as its pushed aside and solidifies back into itself.” Maxar contributed the robotic arm with the milling end-effector, as well as the sensors and cameras necessary to monitor the experiment. The pieces of steel used in the experiment were, according to Voyager’s release, “the same material that is used on the outer shell of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur.”
Marsh said that the experiment was necessary because earthbound metal-cutting just isn’t viable in space. “Traditionally when you cut through metal on Earth, you’re grinding through it, shaving it off essentially, which creates fragments of [often superheated] metal” he said, “and it’s bad if you send pieces of metal flying around in space.” This is why the experiment happened in a sealed box, and especially why they couldn’t do it on or near the ISS. If their experiment had happened anywhere near a manned spacecraft and some metal had gone flying, lives could have been at risk.
So they attached the sealed OMD-1 to Transporter 5’s second stage, and once the second stage was in orbit, they performed the experiment. At the time of the interview, Marsh said that they hadn’t yet gotten enough data back to determine whether the cutting was a success or not. But they’re pleased with OMD as a test bed, and are already planning the OMD-2 mission, which will likely be a welding experiment.
“Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling” for rockets
Why is cutting and welding in space so important to Nanoracks and Voyager? Because the “Outposts” are going to be made of rockets’ repurposed and rebuilt second stages. Marsh said that “these days when somebody launches a rocket [they] can return the first stage of that rocket back to Earth, but upper stages are still disposed of.”
Sometimes they’re sent down to burn up in the atmosphere, sometimes sent into a graveyard orbit, but both have issues: deorbiting can potentially lead to pieces landing on Earth and could actually affect the ozone layer, while graveyard orbits could eventually become crowded enough to threaten to cause a “Kessler syndrome” situation.
Their Outpost program and their Mars test were both guided by that awareness. The Outposts are a way of reducing the amount of useless junk in orbit. In an earlier interview, Marsh said that they could be waste storage and recycling hubs, where “a small vehicle would then be deployed off of the outpost. It goes out, captures debris, sends them back to the outpost, and deposits them inside the upper stage.”
In his conversation with SpaceQ however, he suggested that they could be used to perform experiments and perhaps space-based manufacturing in situations where it’s unfeasible to do them inside or near a manned space station.
Marsh gave one example of noise as a reason to use Outposts. He said that “crewed stations [are] very loud…life support systems make a lot of noise, people moving around… it all makes a lot of vibration. That’s really bad if you’re trying to manufacture very sensitive material, or if you’re testing something that is very sensitive to movement.” A second stage repurposed to an Outpost may well get that job done with fewer disruptions, and it will be a sealed and secure environment to experiment and work inside.
He said that OMD-1 is also connected to this desire to reduce space junk. Repurposing and recycling old orbital jetsam into Outposts is going to take a lot of cutting and welding of material never designed to be cut or welded in space, and Nanoracks wants to ensure that they won’t create any other debris while doing it. So they’re performing these experiments in these sealed boxes to make sure it works and keep any potential shards contained.
Who’ll pay for the recycling
Who’s going to pay for all this recycling, though? Is it worthwhile from a financial point of view? After all, it was the financial realities of debris-clearing that prompted Obruta to pivot to satellite maintenance.
In terms of metal recycling, Marsh isn’t sure. So much depends on how expensive it will be to lift a kilogram of metal into space. At the moment, he estimated it at about $5000 USD per kilogram, but that could fall quickly with growing launch capacity. It also depends on how easy or difficult this recycling will be, and it’s still too early to estimate that before the OMD experiments are complete. He said he still believes that “yes, there is a future in which it would be cost effective in which to use [repurposed] metal in space.”
Government support is promising. The OMD-1 experiment is being funded by NASA’s NextSTEP-2 Appendix A: Habitat Systems, for example, showing that NASA at least is taking the project seriously. Marsh also pointed to the USSF Orbital Prime program as proof that the US Space Force is starting to pay attention to orbital litter, and said that both the European Space Agency and Japan’s JAXA are putting money towards debris removal missions.
He thinks that there will be a commercial market as well, where you can “use the upper stage for some other activity and be able to generate money that way.” He said that commercial space station builder-operators like Voyager and Axiom will also have a strong incentive to clean up LEO debris as “protecting those investments in those assets.” It’s still early days, but he believes “there are beginning to be sources of funding available for [debris removal],” and he intends to ensure that Nanoracks, Voyager Space, and their Outposts will be there to take advantage of it.