Advanced Manufacturing and Assembly Approaches for Reduced Cost Small Satellite Constellations

The primary objective of this program is to fully transition a DDM approach for fabricating classes of satellites between 6U cubesats and ESPA. To accomplish this, highly integrated subcomponents with integrated functionality must support thermal, RF, data, power, radiation protection and structural will be mandatory. A fair fraction of a satellite can be made modular, and all features and functions can be fabricated using DDM, the challenge is to match state of the art and demonstrate a cost reduction. We will show demonstrations for a modular approach and will also provide a state of the progress in printing functional electronic structures.