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Millennium’s 3D printed aluminum/titanium test bus (photo: Millennium)

SPACE SYMPOSIUM: Millennium Space Systems is readying to test fly a 3D printed metal bus designed as a proof of concept for its small satellites — potentially including a future constellation in Medium Earth Orbit now being studied by the Space Force to track hypersonic missiles.

The goal is to allow customers — especially those in the national security arena — to see that 3D printed metal spacecraft actually can make it to orbit and function just like traditional spacecraft, Jason Kim, Millennium CEO, told Breaking Defense.

The test craft is composed of aluminum and titanium, and is about half the size of an ESPA-class satellite’s 2X2X3 feet in volume, he said. (ESPA stands for Evolved Secondary Payload Adapter, which is a standardized ring-shaped attachment that allows small sats to share rides on the same rocket.) The company hopes to find a ride for it sometime soon.

“I’m actively looking,” he said. “I’d love to launch it this year, if I could.”

Meanwhile, the smallsat firm — which was acquired by Boeing in 2018 — last month passed a crucial milestone in its work under the Space Force’s Missile Track Custody Prototype (TCD) program to design a missile tracking constellation in MEO, optimized for keeping tabs on rapidly maneuverable hypersonic missiles.

Space Systems Command (SSC) last May contracted Millennium and Raytheon to deliver by November 2022 a “high-fidelity digital model” to allow the Space Force to undertake, in effect, early orbital testing on the ground via computer.

Lt. Col. Gary Goff, materiel leader for the SSC Missile Track Custody Demonstration, told Breaking Defense in an email that “both Raytheon and Millennium Space Systems are on track for a payload Critical Design Review (CDR) in November 2022.”

He added that Millennium had completed its “delta” Preliminary Design Review at the end of March 2022; Raytheon did so in February.

Kim explained that while TCD is a MEO program, Millennium’s design could also fly in Low Earth Orbit and Geosynchronous Orbit. “Our Track Custody Prototype is a flexible system for any orbit. The way we designed our system gives our customer flexibility,” he said.

And flexibility, Kim noted, is also one of the most valuable aspects of 3D printing for national security space customers.

“So, what the 3D printing allows you to do, and what the digital engineering allows you to do, is pivot when the requirements change because you can rapidly print and rapidly prototype,” Kim said. “These days, our national security space customers, they can’t get these capabilities up on orbit fast enough, right, to keep up with the threat or to keep ahead of the threat.”

Millennium’s work on the test structure has shown that 3D printing reduces manufacturing costs by some 30 percent of the traditionally manufactured honeycombed aluminum panels that make up spacecraft, and cuts manufacturing time from six months to one month, Kim explained.

Boeing and Millennium on March 30 announced that they have built a new factory in El Seguno, California “designed to build small satellites for different security levels on the same assembly line, the digitally-defined small satellite factory incorporates model-based systems engineering, digital design engineering, and design for manufacturability.

The new factory space, Kim said, will allow Millennium to “scale up” and rapidly turn out smallsat constellations.