On the latest Additive Insight podcast episode, we sit down with Scott Van Vliet, the SVP of Additive & Software Engineering at Relativity Space, to discuss the space company's use of 3D printing technology.
Van Vliet joined Relativity at the start of 2022, having previously held roles at Mattel, Microsoft and Amazon. Through these roles, he had exposure to both 3D printing and software engineering, and when the opportunity at Relativity presented itself, he found it too hard to turn down.
In Relativity, he is working for a company that has lofty ambitions to additively manufacture the majority of its Terran launch vehicles and facilitate space exploration on such planets as Mars. The company has raised over $1 billion in funding in its Series D and Series E rounds alone, and recently announced its partnership with Impulse Space to launch its Mars Cruise Vehicle and Mars Lander into trans-Mars injection orbit.
During this episode, we discuss all that, as well as the considerations Relativity makes when deploying 3D printing, what's involved in the rest of its manufacturing workflow, and what is motivating the company to harness AM technology in its bid to enable space exploration.
When discussing the significance of space exploration, Van Vliet says: "If we can come up with more advanced technologies for additive manufacturing, especially of large scale systems, and eliminate the need for fixed tooling and potentially harmful systems, you can reduce waste, you can have a lower carbon footprint, you can have, again, a lot of aspirational goals of sustainability on this planet that can be achieved by inventing and developing this technology. So, for me, it's the confluence of the wonderment and kind of the unification of space as a concept for humanity. And then also the technologies that we're building specifically for very complex vehicles and products today have a direct application for more terrestrial purposes."
More ways to listen:
