Thales Alenia Space and SWISSto12 entered into agreement during the Satellite 2018 show in Washington, D.C. Both companies will work and innovate together by setting up a novel supply chain of spacecraft waveguides. The products will be manufactured by SWISSto12 based on Thales Alenia Space design and SWISSto12 proprietary Additive Manufacturing and surface treatment technologies that have now reached space qualification maturity.
Thales Alenia Space, a champion in 3D-printed parts in orbit, will be amongst the first satellite integrators to benefit from this novel technology as well as a digitalisation approach that both partners are setting up to enable disruptively low lead-times, manufacturing flexibility and competitiveness for high quantities of custom designed waveguides.
SWISSto12 is a pioneer of the development and industrial supply of RF antenna, waveguide and filter products based on additive manufacturing (also known as 3D printing). The company’s products are first designed with an extended freedom offered by the technology. This offers opportunity to design products in a novel way that contributes to enhancing their performance. Once a design is fixed, the products are 3D printed out of advanced polymers or lightweight metals before being surface treated and metal plated using a proprietary technology. These later steps are of key importance to ensure high RF performance of the printed products.