ASCI - 602 Updated Blog Post (Mod 8.3)

Aaron Stone – Blog

(Update, September 26, 2018)

Lockheed Martin’s Innovation Lab

As reported by Santana (2018) Lockheed Martin unveiled the opening of a new innovation lab located in Orlando, Florida. The purpose of the lab is in demonstrating technologies including 3D-printing, virtual and augmented reality (VR) headsets and a robotics. The 6,500-square-foot lab is located at the company’s Missiles and Fire Control campus and is meant to encourage its employees to experiment, along with being seen as a recruitment tool in a highly competitive battle for skilled workers (Santana, 2018). Additionally, the lab includes a sensor, optics, and laser testing site and an animation lab that allows quick visualizations of concepts. Lockheed Martin anticipates that the new facility will help the company create new patents and win multimillion-dollar contracts (Santana, 2018).

Historically, Lockheed Martin has continued pushing the limits of three-dimensional/additive manufacturing printing (3D/AM) technology. By bringing design engineers to the factory floor to produce parts, layer by layer, that previously could not be built using traditional manufacturing methods. Once built, the parts undergo extensive testing before becoming qualified to be used in real-world applications. Three-dimensional/additive manufacturing (3D/AM) is leading to the creation of affordable parts that are more capable and durable than ever.

Most notable, Lockheed Martin developed the Juno spacecraft. Juno is the first solar-powered spacecraft to operate at Jupiter and currently holds the record as the farthest spacecraft from the Sun to operate on solar power (Hauf, 2018). Since Jupiter has an extremely radioactive environment Juno has a unique titanium vault mounted between the spacecraft main structure and high gain antenna. The vault acts as shielding to protect the critical spacecraft computers and instrument computers from the high energy particles it will encounter when the orbit comes close to the planet (Hauf, 2018). Juno is the first planetary spacecraft to fly 3D-printed parts consisting of over a dozen 3D-printed wave guide brackets made out of titanium alloy (Hauf, 2018).

References

Hauf, D. (2018, September 26). Lockheed Martin. Retrieved from Lockheed Martin/Mission Overview/Juno: https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/juno.html

Santana, M. (2018, September 25). Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved from Orlando Sentinel/Business/Technology: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/technology/os-lockheed-innovation-center-20180925-story.html