Printing Nickel 625 powder 6K Additive partners with Agile Space Industries to advance mission to the Moon

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A new certification for Ni625 powder could revolutionise lunar missions with hypergolic engines that throttle in under 650 milliseconds. This project showas that additive manufacturing is not only shortening aerospace development cycles but also meeting environmental goals through sustainable practices.

A new partnership between 6K Additive and Agile Space Industry aims to certify Ni625 powder for use in critical rocket components, including those in Agile Space Industries' A2200 bipropellant hypergolic engines. Agile’s A2200 engines will be used on a Lunar lander vehicle. The A2200 engine was developed to provide maximum performance on demanding missions, with a specific impulse of more than 318 seconds. Using an integral pintle sleeve throttling mechanism, the engine is capable of deep throttling, providing a smooth ride and fine control for a variety of missions. The engine can throttle from 50 to 100 percent thrust in under 650 milliseconds — making it the perfect engine for heavily demanding maneuvering sequences that lunar missions require.

Kyle Metsger, Director of Additive Technology at Agile, explained: “By weight, 85 percent of our engine components are additively manufactured, meaning we rely heavily on AM powders that can withstand the extreme temperatures and forces generated during take-off and flight. 6K Additive allows us to additively manufacture using high-quality powders that are required for our critical applications, while also helping us meet our environmental goals through their recycling program and sustainably manufactured powders. 6K Additive can deliver extremely consistent powder that allows our production line to run the long build times required for these complex components.”

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Traditional development cycles for aerospace components can be more than two decades. However, by harnessing the speed and flexibility of AM, Agile is able to compress development time down to twelve months. “A year-long development cycle still sounds like a very long time in many industries, but we are showing the primes in the aerospace industry what the future looks like. Moving to the larger Truprint 5000 machine gave us the ability to qualify the new parameters for the machine and material simultaneously. In this way, AM allows us to be ‘Agile’ in name and practice,” continued Kyle Metsger.

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