Scientists think the most likely places to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system are the moons of Saturn and Jupiter—hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth.
Creating an interplanetary lander that can travel extreme distances in the harsh conditions of space presents a massive challenge. Autodesk and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have teamed up to explore new approaches to design and manufacturing processes for space exploration, applying generative-design technology. The resulting concept lander pushes the limits of design to inspire new approaches to the search for life beyond our planet.
Read why Fast Co. says it is "the most complex generative design ever made".
We worked with engineers at NASA to invent new capabilities and propose new workflows to adopt generative design techniques to augment their proven processes. This project was expressed by the demonstration of new manufacturing techniques for Project Gamma.
When you're sending a spacecraft off on a multi-year mission, the room for error is slim. That's why before NASA sends spacecrafts to the launchpad, they need to be confident in the design and manufacturing of any spacecraft. After a reference design is created, it needs to be optimized and put through rigorous simulations to make sure that it can survive the incredibly strong loads it will experience on launch.
The next step is to physically test the craft. In this case a aluminum alloy chassis to hold all the valuable scientific payloads and required to withstand incredible loads before it gets into space. Any spacecraft needs to be certified then built to exacting manufacturing standards that are reproducible over and over again. Only then do engineers and flight specialists have confidence that what they have designed and built will withstand the harsh environment in space. .
In creating this project we pursued strategies that had never been tried before, casting the largest and most complex object out of aluminum ever created. We then use the facility at Autodesk Workshop facilities @Pier 9 in San Francisco to assemble the prototype craft, with JPL engineers sitting in residence to bring their expertise to fabrication and assembly.
final assembly took over six weeks and involved specialists from all parts of Autodesk Research and JPL's flight team. at the same time we were building the prototype craft, we were creating a software prototype so that the capabilities could be reproduced for potential future software.
One of the most important research objectives was developing new manufacturing constraints for our flagship manufacturing product fusion 360. We developed constraints for 2-D and 3-D machining, for Paulo and thin wall, casting, and for 3-D printing in metal. All of these new constraints were demonstrated in the final prototype spacecraft.
This project was one of the most complex and challenging ever undertaken by Research at Autodesk.. The physical prototype is still on display at Autodesk gallery at one market in San Francisco. So many talented people were involved on both sides of this project.
My role was the senior Director in charge of initiating the project, the engagement lead between Autdoesk, and JPL executives, getting approval for the project, negotiating the contract, and executing the development of the prototype and physical build over the two years of the collaborative engagement.
