Airbus and Oerlikon Sign Contract for Satellite Parts

Oerlikon AM and Airbus have industrialized the additive manufacturing (AM) process for serial production of antenna clusters. These will be used in a series of communication satellites that will be orbiting earth soon, according to the companies. This marks a milestone in the 10-year collaboration between both companies in an area requiring absolute accuracy and has resulted in a €3.8 million contract to additively manufacture these satellite components, the companies say.

Oerlikon AM and Airbus have been working together in the field of 3D printed metal parts for space, developing components, several of which are already in orbit. The aluminum antenna clusters measure approximately 400x400x400 mm and are manufactured using laser powder bed fusion technology. These antennas are part of next-generation communication satellites that will transmit and receive communication and/or data signals in K-band frequency.

Advanced technologies like additive manufacturing are key in space applications to deliver benefits such as weight reduction. Satellites must meet  challenging mass, reliability and sustainability requirements. Thanks to AM, the production lead time for an antenna cluster could be reduced from 6 months to a few weeks compared to conventional manufacturing.

“To create a final product of excellent quality, technical cooperation and understanding each other’s needs and requirements is fundamental for a well-coordinated design and manufacturing process—not only in rapid prototyping, but even more so in serial production,” says Michael Kilian, R&D manager for Additive Manufacturing of RF Space Components, Airbus.

“The key success factor is the specific AM machine setup, which allows the family of geometries to be reproduced with the required accuracy and the process to be indefinitely repeated. Thus, we met the high accuracy and quality requirements of Airbus, and consequently the specified European Space Agency (ESA) standards for satellites,” says Hendrik Alfter, managing director, Oerlikon AM. “We are pleased that the cooperation has resulted in a €3.8 million multi-year contract for the supply of antenna clusters.”

The two parties have jointly fine-tuned the post processing as a key part of the process development. As an all-round service provider, Oerlikon AM offers Airbus printing, post-processing and surface finish optimization for the best possible RF (radio frequency) performance, precision CNC (computer numerical control) milling, quality assurance, ultrasonic cleaning, assembly, and wire integration, as well as customized logistics. Oerlikon AM is a registered and qualified supplier to Airbus and passes audits annually.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.