NASA Wants to Bring Welding Back to Space After 50 Years—This Time With Lasers

As space agencies look to establish human habitats on the Moon and Mars, astronauts must be equipped with tools to manufacture structures in space. But rather than packing a traditional tool box to space, NASA is looking to use laser beams to potentially revolutionize in-space manufacturing and make those long-duration stays on the lunar surface more durable.

A team of engineers from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the Ohio State University are carrying out a multi-year study to test the effects of laser beam welding in a combined vacuum and reduced gravity environment, the space agency announced.

“For a long time, we’ve used fasteners, rivets, or other mechanical means to keep structures that we assemble together in space,” Andrew O’Connor, NASA’s technical lead for the project, said in a statement. “But we’re starting to realize that if we really want strong joints and if we want structures to stay together when assembled on the lunar surface, we may need in-space welding.”

NASA is hoping to use laser beams to potentially assemble large structures, manufacture new parts, repair cracks on the Moon, which would eliminate the need to transport rivets or other material to space through cargo missions. But first, the space agency must figure out how welds perform in the microgravity environment of space. “Once you leave Earth, it becomes more difficult to test how the weld performs, so we are leveraging both experiments and computer modeling to predict welding in space while we’re still on the ground,” O’Connor said.

The laser welding tests began in August when the team performed high-powered fiber laser beam welding in a simulated reduced gravity environment on board a commercial aircraft. During the experiment, the aircraft carried out parabolic flight maneuvers “that began in level flight, pulled up to add 8,000 feet in altitude, and pushed over at the top of a parabolic arc,” according to NASA. All in all, the team had approximately 20 seconds of reduced gravity to carry out the simulated in-space welding while floating in the weightless environment on board the aircraft. A network of sensors collected data during the experiment, which will help scientists understand how space affects laser beam welding.

“During the flights we successfully completed 69 out of 70 welds in microgravity and lunar gravity conditions, realizing a fully successful flight campaign,” Will McAuley, an Ohio State welding engineering student, said in a statement.

NASA hasn’t experimented with welding in space in more than 50 years, so it’s safe to say that the development of in-space manufacturing is way overdue. In 1973, the space agency performed bead-on-plate welding, brazing, and metal melting experiments onboard the Skylab orbital space station.

Now is a better time than ever as NASA aims to build structures on the Moon, and perhaps even Mars in the distant future, to support a sustainable human presence. In-space welding has the potential to save the space agency and its astronauts a lot of trouble, building and repairing things in space rather than waiting for cargo to be delivered from Earth.

Another in-space welding experiment, called the Nanoracks Astrobeat, recently launched to the ISS aboard the 31st resupply mission. The experiment aims to test cold welding in space as a method for repairing spacecraft damaged by micrometeorites and space debris. According to NASA, conducting in-space repairs from within the spacecraft could be safer and more efficient.