NASA ‘emails’ wrench to space station

Photo released by NASA shows the International Space Station at an altitude of approximately 220 miles above the Earth.

NASA has for the first time ‘emailed’ a new wrench as an emailed digital file for the International Space Station’s onboard 3D printer.

A request from ISS astronaut Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench led the Made In Space team to design the tool after which it sent the digital printing file to NASA which uploaded it to the station.

Once the digital file arrived on the ISS, Wilmore fired up the printer, which churned out 20 separate parts which the astronaut assembled into the exact wrench he had requested, according to media reports.

“The socket wrench we just manufactured is the first object we designed on the ground and sent digitally to space, on the fly,” Made In Space founder Mike Chen said.

“This is the first time we’ve ever ‘emailed’ hardware to space,” Mr. Chen said.

“Because it’s a lot faster to send digital data (which can travel at the speed of light) to space than it is to send physical objects (which involves waiting months to years for a rocket), it makes more sense to 3D—print things in space, when we can, instead of launching them,” Mr. Chen said.

The on-demand printing of a custom-designed tool is precisely the type of work the printer was intended for, its designers said.

In November, the printer had manufactured the first 3-D printed object in space — a replacement part for itself.