On July 13th, US time, the US Space Advanced Science Center (CASIS), the gatekeeper of the International Space Station, approved 12 pilot projects that can be conducted on the International Space Station. This includes a company called “Space Manufacturingâ€. plan.
This "space manufacturing" funded by NASA was previously known as the first company to have manufacturing equipment in space (a 3d printer). Now they announced that they will manufacture optical fiber in space microgravity environment. "The project is equally impressive. Because the fiber will affect many areas, especially the communications industry.
Picture from: Made in Space official website
Space Manufacturing Corporation expects to ship a new manufacturing facility to the International Space Station in 2017. If the initial tests were successful, the company would produce better-quality fiber optic products in space than ever before, and then ship these products back to Earth for the manufacture of sensors for the Internet infrastructure, medical devices, and aerospace and defense industries.
It is reported that microgravity may be the ideal environment for manufacturing optical fibers. Today, fiber can be used in many areas, but most people understand that for the communications industry, such as Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber to build ultra-high-speed broadband network will need to consume a large number of fiber optic products.
Hairline glass fiber can transmit light pulses, and the speed of information transmitted by it is much higher than that of ordinary copper wire. However, the transmission effect of the optical fiber is subject to the poor quality of the glass.
Due to the influence of gravity, fiberglass manufactured on the earth can be doped with impurities and form microcrystals. These impurities can cause scattering and absorption losses, which can degrade the quality of the optical fiber, and further lead to signal degradation when transmitting data over long distances and bring about a series of other problems.
Picture from: Uswitch
Although it is still too early to talk about quantitative comparisons, the company has begun to believe that the microgravity fiber has more advantages in response time and data throughput than the existing fiber products.
Andrew Rush, CEO of Space Manufacturing, said: “Our space manufacturing activities will also produce commercially valuable products. This exploration will soon promote the tremendous development of space business activities. Perhaps one day, there will be a boom in the prosperity of the space economy. ."
Space Manufacturing Corporation has already reached a cooperation with Thorlabs, which specializes in the manufacture of fiber optics and laser devices. Together, the two companies will produce the first batch of microgravity fiber for testing at the International Space Station and will carry it to Earth for further testing. If the test results are as expected, the space manufacturing company will further expand its production scale.
Andrew Rush said: "Our cooperation in manufacturing technologies in space and Thorlabs' optical fiber manufacturing technology is to rapidly develop high-quality optical fibers produced in microgravity environments and further push them into existing and new markets. â€
It is reported that space manufacturing company plans to manufacture 100 meters of optical fiber on the International Space Station. Although the optical fiber of microgravity sounds promising, we also have to wait until the first shipment of the finished product back to Earth, and that will require at least a year of waiting time.
The picture shows the International Space Station, from: NASA
Via TC