NASA's really into 3D printing, but its latest project goes far beyond pizza. The space agency has manufactured its largest rocket part ever, an injector plate, which successfully helped produce around 20,000 pounds of thrust on a test bed. They modified an existing machined injector to work with the 3D printing process, using two parts instead of 115 and NASA said that early results showed it worked "flawlessly." Such parts could one day reduce rocket costs while potentially increasing safety, since they're less-complex and have fewer points of failure. NASA will ramp up the thrust on subsequent tests, but meanwhile, if you don't want to see a rocket motor firing with 10 tons of thrust, don't head after the jump.
Filed under: Transportation, Science, Alt
Via: Ars Technica
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