Space Manufacturing and Assembly of Revolutionary Thermoplastic Composites (SMART C - ACO)

Completed NASA Game Changing Development project led by Marshall Space Flight Center from 2023-04-01 to 2025-09-30 with Lockheed Martin support under Space Act Agreement ACO-2022-0007. SMART-C demonstrated preliminary in-space welding of thermoplastic composites, screening laser, friction-stir, and electron-beam methods for low-power joining of thermoplastic and thermoplastic-metallic substrates. In-space thermoplastic manufacturing and assembly can improve volumetric packaging efficiency by an order of magnitude over deployable structures and provide lower-cost, lower-energy alternatives to thermoset or metallic approaches for large space structures.