These 3D metal printers are heavy and energy-intensive because of their laser melting process, as is compared with composite 3D printing in the last section.

SpaceX first used a 3D-printed component in 2014, which was a liquid oxygen valve in one of the nine engines inside the Falcon 9 rocket currently, an entire engine of a small rocket can be 3D manufactured using large-scale metal printers with robotic arms, which reduce the number of assembled engine parts by an order of magnitude. The long-term goal of establishing space habitats in on the Moon or Mars will require 3D printing of nearly all printable materials aforementioned to independently sustain astronauts’ lives through structural, electrical, and biomedical applications similar to those on Earth. In the near term, 3D-printed structures currently prepared on Earth will be manufactured or/and assembled on low-Earth orbit (LEO) both on-Earth and off-Earth AM activities are expected to enhance the logistics and supply chain management of spare parts for space missions. Exploring diverse materials and applications will achieve the short-term goal of affordable access to space and the long-term goal of mankind’s prolonged existence beyond Earth. The application areas of AM have also ever been expanding toward the field of space engineering beyond terrestrial applications.

Food, fabric, concrete, and cement are amongst the new printable materials that have been considered commercially. Additive manufacturing (AM) has recently adopted a wide variety of materials ranging from plastics, metals, their composites, and alloys.

Interstellar airgap