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With the Mars 2020 mission now past the halfway point between Earth and its destination, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab recently released a couple of stories about the 3D-printed parts that made it aboard the Perseverance rover. Tucked into its aeroshell and ready for its high-stakes ride to the Martian surface, Perseverance sports eleven separate parts that we created with additive manufacturing. It’s not the first time a spacecraft has flown with parts made with additive manufacturing technique, but it is the first time JPL has created a vehicle with so many printed parts.

To take a closer look at what 3D-printing for spaceflight-qualified components looks like, and to probe a little into the rationale for additive versus traditional subtractive manufacturing techniques, I reached out to JPL and was put in touch with Andre Pate, Additive Manufacturing Group Lead, and Michael Schein, lead engineer on one of the mission’s main scientific instruments. They both graciously gave me time to ask questions and geek out on all the cool stuff going on at JPL in terms of additive manufacturing, and to find out what the future holds for 3D-printing and spaceflight.

We’ve been keenly interested in the Mars 2020 mission in general, with a special interest in the engineering behind its mobile astrobiology and geology laboratory, Perseverance. In addition to deep-dives into the Adaptive Sample Caching system that will seal up Martian regolith samples for an eventual sample return mission, and Ingenuity, the first aircraft designed to operate off-world, we profiled the Perseverance rover, which will carry all this gear around the Red Planet. The amount of science this rover is slated to perform could very well change our perception of Mars, and may well turn up the first definitive evidence of extraterrestrial life.

To accomplish these missions, Perseverance includes a number of sophisticated instruments, two of which sport most of the 3D-printed parts included on the mission. The Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry or PIXL, is designed to search deep inside Martian rocks for signs of fossil life. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, is intended to test technologies for producing unlimited amounts of oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, in support of refueling rockets for the return trip to Earth. Both instruments contain parts made with advanced metal 3D-printing techniques, both in-house at JPL’s Additive Manufacturing Center, and externally at vendors contracted for special jobs.

In addition to more typical polymer printers, which are mainly used for prototyping and printing fixtures and jigs, JPL’s in-house additive lab has a wide range of technologies available for printing metal parts. Which modality is used depends very much upon where the part is going to be used. JPL also has arrangements with outside additive manufacturing vendors to print the pieces they can’t do in-house.

For non-flight parts, the JPL team uses mostly directed-energy deposition, possibly the coolest-sounding 3D-printing modality there is. DED depends on a high-energy beam, either laser or an electron beam, into which powdered metal or a fine wire is fed. The energy creates a pool of molten metal that is applied to the growing print. DED is somewhat like spray arc welding or laser cladding, with the addition of CNC control of the print head and an inert environment to reduce oxidation of the growing print. DED has the advantages of relatively fast build rates and the ability to create fine features, as well as minimal need for post-processing steps like additional machining or pressing (more on which below).

Parts that are destined to fly on JPL-built spacecraft are not printed on the in-house DED machines, though. Rather, JPL turns to powder-bed fusion printers for their flight-qualified parts. There’s an alphabet soup’s worth of initialisms for powder-bed printing processes, including selective laser sintering (SLM), selective laser melting (SLM), and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS). The video below shows DMLS on an EOS M290, one of the three DMLS machines the JPL Additive Manufacturing Center runs.

Hot isostatic pressing, or HIP, is a process that has long been used by the powdered-metal industry to finish parts made by, for example, die pressing or metal injection molding, and more recently for metal additive manufacturing. Parts created with any of these techniques necessarily have voids within them; no matter how fine the powder grains used to create the part, gases are still trapped within its structure. HIP aims to literally squeeze those bubbles away, using a combination of extreme heat — up to 2,000°C — and extreme pressure of perhaps 100 MPa or more, using an inert gas like argon.

Parts subjected to HIP treating experience considerable shrinkage as the parts are compacted. This has to be accounted for at design time, but HIP has the decided advantage over regular hot pressing because it applies pressure evenly to the part, shrinking it predictably in all dimensions. This tends to avoid the dimensional distortions that traditional pressing using solid anvils introduces into parts.

Another consideration in additive manufacturing of metal parts for spaceflight is the “foundry in a box” problem. For traditional subtractive manufacturing, the starting material is a block of metal that has already been through a foundry process. The metal has either been cast, extruded or perhaps forged, has been heat-treated and tempered, and has known properties with regard to strength, ductility, and hardness. It may even have been X-rayed to reveal any hidden imperfections. Its crystal structure is more or less fixed, and all that’s left to do to it is to remove the unnecessary bits to expose the part hidden within.

For additive manufacturing, though, the metal part that results is not as well-characterized. Where the crystal structure of the starting material in subtractive manufacturing is pretty much set, the energetic means needed to accomplish metal 3D-printing by definition change the microscopic structure of the starting material. Hence the “foundry in a box” — the metal in a 3D-printed part was literally made de novo. For flight-qualified parts, where potentially billions of dollars are on the line, engineers need to account for the chaotic, energetic regimes that 3D-printed parts experienced, however briefly, during their fiery birth. That adds a layer of uncertainty, but for the flexibility offered by additive manufacturing, it’s just another cost of doing business.

It turns out I was wrong about that. With parts destined for flight, cost is hardly ever considered as a driver for moving to additive manufacturing. Additive is generally viewed more as an enabling technology, and is used to create parts that can’t be created any other way. The aforementioned gradient alloy encoder shaft is a perfect example — blending metallurgical properties within a single part is difficult to accomplish with anything but additive manufacturing. Another example of parts that are not feasible with anything but additive are parts where mass must be kept to a minimum, or parts which will go into an assembly with specific cooling needs and need to have built-in cooling channels. Such parts would be difficult to create subtractively, but are much more easily 3D-printed.

For as flexible and powerful as additive manufacturing is in aerospace applications, you’d think that the industry would be flocking to it en masse. And while they are to some degree, in a lot of ways it’s a very conservative industry that wisely looks at radical change with skepticism. But as additive manufacturing continues to make parts possible that were once impossible, and as JPL keeps racking up successful missions using these previously impossible parts, it’ll prove itself and solidify its place as a manufacturing method of choice for all kinds of missions.

“Three to four years ago, none of my peers believed we would see additive manufacturing of safety-critical parts,” Michael Gorelik, Federal Aviation Administration chief scientific and technical adviser for fatigue and damage tolerance, said Oct. 19 at the Additive Aerospace conference here. “We don’t have them yet, but based on the leading indicators I see it’s coming and it’s coming fairly fast.”

Flaherty Equipment’s parts department mission is to provide exceptional customer service by working quickly to fulfill all parts orders. Our parts staff are factory trained and very knowledgeable on all the products we represent. Contact our parts department today for all your crane parts and accessory needs.

The GTA 5 Strangers and Freaks questline is one of the more fun diversions in Grand Theft Auto 5. Here we get to see the stable of nutty and hilarious characters that Rockstar has designed and crafted for us. There are so many different activities and missions you can perform in the game including Strangers and Freaks.

These are tough tasks but with a little time and guidance, you can do better at completing them. Strangers and Freaks GTA V missions will offer different rewards and for those of us who like to 100% completion rates, these missions are a must.

The following GTA 5 Strangers and Freaks guide will help you know how to complete Strangers and Freaks side missions in GTA 5. Keep in mind that these are not part of the main storyline so if you do not wish to spend hours doing these, just ignore the quest givers and move on.

Most of Stranger and Freaks missions are hilarious (especially the one with Barry and the weed). There’s a lot of these though, and they’re required for the 100% completion rating that players sometimes desire. Most of the missions are tied to a particular protagonist and to find them, you need to search for the ‘?’ mark on the map.

After you’ve been introduced to a particular character in the Strangers and Freaks questline their icon becomes unique. For example, the first time you meet Beverly the icon will be a ‘?’, but every subsequent mission with him displays a ‘P’.

You need to have completed Blitz Play and have purchased the Sonar Collections Dock property to unlock this mission. This mission is meant to be done by Michael and your contact will be a blond woman named Abigail at the Sonar Collections Dock.

What you need to do to complete this mission is to collect all 30 Submarine Pieces, check out our Submarine Pieces location guide here. After getting the parts, return to Abigail and she will be very unhappy to see evidence of tampering with the airlocks of the sub.

To unlock this mission, you need to complete the Complications and Pulling Favors missions. Take Michael and head to the question mark and you’ll find a gentleman named Barry sitting behind a desk with a ‘Legalize Weed’ sign.

You need to have the Father/Son, Pulling Favors and the Epsilon Program Identity Evaluation on the Epsilon website completed to unlock this mission for Michael. After all this, you receive a report making reference to a red truck and a ‘?’ appears on the map. Head over to this marker near Mount Josiah to find the truck.

IF you have to find them the old-fashioned way, here are some tips. The Super Diamond, Tornado and Dinka Double-T motorbike will spawn more frequently for the duration of this mission. You can find the Serrano parked in a cul-de-sac near Lake Vinewood. You can look for a Vacca parked in front of a house in the Vinewood Hills.

Shortly after finishing the last mission, you’ll be contacted by Jimmy Boston, who directs you to somewhere between the coast and Fort Zancudo. Meet Tom here, next to a plane you need to fly.

If you have completed the Complications and Pulling Favors missions, then this Strangers and Freaks icon will become available to you. Head to the ‘?’ on the map to find a fitness freak named Mary-Ann. She has some serious issues.

To unlock this you must complete the Three’s Company mission. After doing so, head to the market with Trevor. Once again you meet Barry who offers up his product to you. Basically, the same thing happens with Michael, except you’re being attacked by Clowns instead of Aliens.

After the last mission, Cletus’ ‘C’ icon appears on the map at Bayview Lodge. Find him to begin the next mission. This time we’re going to hunt some Elk, and to help in this regard we’ve been given an Elk call whistle.

A third Elk needs to be taken down now, the catch is that it’s near a female, and the mission is failed if you shoot it by accident. To differentiate between them look for the one with antlers, that’s the one you want to shoot.

This mission line is started after you complete the ‘Hang Ten’ mission. Trevor will be able to go to the new ‘?’ icon on the map and find a realtor named Josh. Josh asks for Trevor’s help in getting back at a rival Realtor named Lenny Avery, who has stolen all of his clients.

When his car stops, he’ll get out. Make sure to have a club or something and beat him up with it. After a while, the mission will end with Avery agreeing to stay away from Josh’s business.

Approach her for a conversation in which she asks for some help in locating these jumpers for a portion of the pay. She’ll periodically send you some information on the targets and you can go after them when you feel like it. Check out our guide for the bail bond missions here.

This mission is also unlocked after ‘Mr. Phillips’. Head to the ‘?’ at the plant off Joshua Road near the Grand Senora Desert’s western edge. You find two men peeking into a van, looking for illegal immigrants.

After the Friends Reunited mission is completed Trevor can go over to the question mark on the map to meet and greet this old couple. Approach them to trigger a cutscene in which they tell you that they’re looking for Vinewood movie star souvenirs and you agree to help out.

Completing Three’s Company will unlock this mission for Franklin as well. Head over to the icon to find Barry, who once again tempts our hero into taking a drag on his joint. Franklin does so, then immediately informs Barry that his weed is garbage and crushes the joint underfoot.

A very short mission, simply drive to the ‘B’ marker on the map with Franklin at City Hall. Franklin automatically calls Barry. Leave the area and you’re done.

After completing the Pulling Favors mission, Franklin will be able to start up this mission from the new ‘?’ marker on the map. Approach the bushes next to the stairs and you’ll be jumped by Beverly, who introduces himself as a Paparazzo.

It can become significantly harder to keep the camera on the target during the high-speed chase, but keep trying to get shots of her face. If the camera frame is green, then the shot is good, if it’s red, you need to adjust. Eventually, you escape and the mission ends.

Soon after the last mission, you’ll get news of two targets. Go to the marker at Vinewood Boulevard to find Poppy Mitchell (the star of our sex tape) involved in a high-speed chase with the police.

Take photo just as the handover occurs and send it to Beverly. Get away from the scene and drive off. Soon you call Beverly automatically and the mission ends. The optional objectives are to take the photo without being detected and to take the photo while she’s buying the drugs.

After you complete the Minor Turbulence mission, switch to Franklin to find a new ‘?’ icon on the map. This will take you to a dog, and you will have a conversation with it. The dog is going to lead you to Dom, the new contact.

The last Dom mission starts off at the ‘D’ at the reservoir, where you find the dog again. You need to have all the Parachute jumps completed in order to do it. The dog will lead you to Dom, who’s about to make a dive to the death off into the Spillway.

You need to complete ‘Pulling Favors’ in order to make this mission’s ‘?’ appear on the map. Follow the marker to find Hao standing outside of his car. He offers you an invitation to a street race, something Franklin is more than ready to win.

The optional objectives for this mission are as follows; complete a lap within 1:20, finish the race in 2:50, and finish it with less than 5 collisions.

This Strangers and Freaks mission unlocks upon completion of the Predator mission. Head on over to the ‘F?’ icon on the map to find the blond doing pushups and angrily berating herself. Approach for a cutscene and another race.

After the Fame or Shame mission, this ‘?’ will appear on the map, available for Franklin. Head over to the icon to come to eastern Sandy Shores to find a crazy hippie looking form aliens. He tells Franklin a story about how he was abducted and named Omega. He also asks for help in searching for some spaceship parts.

There’s fifty of them scattered throughout San Andreas, and to find them, you can check out Spaceship parts guide here. After getting them all, another mission will unlock.

Head over to Omega’s trailer at the Wind Farm to complete the mission. The hippie is overjoyed at seeing the final piece of the puzzle and shows you the assembled spacecraft.

This one occurs early on in the game, after finishing the ‘Repossession’ mission. The question mark that appears on the map is right across from Franklin’s house, so go there to meet up with Tonya. She will commission your assistance in her towing business.

Did you know automotive recyclers provide quality, used auto parts at a fraction of the cost of new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) replacement parts? In this edition of the Recycled Part, we spoke with Michael Swift, the current president of the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), about:

The ARA is the voice of the professional automotive recycling industry and their mission is to advance the automotive recycling industry and promote its beneficial effects on society.

B&R: Michael thank you very much for taking time to talk with us about the automotive recycling industry. We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot to learn from you. We want to cover your personal story in the automotive recycling industry so readers can get to know you better. But first, let’s cover some of the most frequently asked questions by people unfamiliar with the industry; "what are the key differences between a CAR and a junkyard," and "why can you trust the quality of used auto parts you purchase from an automotive recycler?"

MS: As an automotive recycler, we inspect the [auto] parts as best we can when they come in. We’re not trying to sell junk. Most of us sell alternators, starters, other parts with warranties on them. For an example, car batteries are expensive right now. We’ll sell them for $40 for a used one. But we’ll sell someone a lifetime one for $45. For $5 more you get a lifetime warranty. If you buy a junkyard part, you’re just buying junk and it might not work on your car. That’s not the deal with a certified auto recycler. Another thing we do is referrals to good auto mechanics. We can save people money by getting them a good used auto part. We’re not here to sell bad parts. We sell warranties on roofs through fenders. The misconception is that junkyard parts are just junk, and no one takes the time to inspect them. That misconception is just wrong.

B&R: Those are some helpful pointers Michael. It’s important for people to know CARs inspect the parts they sell and most come with warranties. Many potential customers hesitate to come to a junkyard because of the reputation they have of being pretty rough-around-the-edges. Can you speak to this hesitancy at all?

MS: The [automotive] recall data. That’s one of our biggest things we’re working on right now, because the OEM’s dont even hardly recognize us as an industry, and we have millions of parts sitting at our facilities that could be recalled and we have no [way to know] other than safercar.gov to figure it out. And then the build sheet data, which it the last six [digits] of the VIN [Vehicle Identification Number] and it tells you everything on that vehicle from the gear ratios to the interior trims to the what kind of radio; everything on that car. Other entities have that information at their hand and, for some reason, ours industry doesn’t. It’s really holding us back...because we don’t have that tool like the rest of the world has where we get the last six [digits] of the VIN and tell you what you need for your car; you don’t need to tell us what part you need for it. We’ll tell you what kind of car you have and what part you need, to get you the correct part the first time; it’s safe, it’s not been recalled. Right now, we have to work harder than we need to, to ensure this.

MS: Right now we just had a bill passed, in the house of representatives, on the FAST act, that the OEMs are required to provide us with the information. Right now we’re in the rulemaking. We need that information electronically, through Hollander, Check-Mate, Pinnacle, or whatever, to let our customers and employees know we have parts in recall. They can take them out of the inventory and the manufacturers can buy them back from us. That’s the key to this whole thing. There’s a law on the books now and we’re trying to keep things rolling in Washington DC.

MS: I’m passionate about the politics; about the wrongs that are in our industry that need to be righted. They’re pretty simple, like the manufacturers not giving us the recall data and the build sheet data. We should not be having to make new laws to require them to give us this information. But they’re not wanting to do it. They’re afraid that auto recyclers are going to infringe on their world. They look as us a competition instead of looking at us as the caretakers of the end of life vehicles; keeping track of these cars, where the automotive fluids goes, and that kind of stuff. They’re not doing it, but we’re taking care of the vehicles at the end of their life. We are a viable partner to the OEMs. We’re selling what they make; we’re selling plug-and-play parts. We are their cousin and we want to be recognized as such.

MS: Right. They care about the competition. They say “why would you put some junk yard part on your car?” Well, they’re not ‘junk yard parts’ they’re ‘used parts.’ They’re just like used cars driving around. GM, Ford, Chrysler all certified used cars. A used car is made of 25,000 parts. So they’re certifying all the parts on that car. It’s not any different than what we do when we put a warranty a used auto part.

MS: We’re paying these guys a decent wage. We provide uniforms and job, we buy them lunch every friday, we supply them with a full tank of gas, we reclaim at the salvage yard, and we give them a good discount on any parts they need for their cars. We keep employees engaged and let them know what’s going on. In these difficult times of business (which we’re trying to make better) they know that times are tough, they know that, so they’re trying to make that sale. If we don’t sell, nobody’s getting paid on friday. The shortest tenured employee I have right now is my son and he’s been here four years.

MS: I agree. I read a lot of trade magazines. Whether it be Fender bender, ratchet and wrench, whether it’s recycler today, whether it"s the ARA magazine. I read a lot of that stuff I like to keep informed of what’s going on, not only in the automotive recycling industry, but what’s going on in the repair industry, the collision industry, the insurance industry. I read a lot of the Mitchell reports, I read a lot of the CCC reports that they bring out if used auto parts are getting above 12%-13% of the auto parts industry market share. Leaders are readers. I enjoy reading about the different things going on in different industries.

B&R Auto Wrecking has 19 locations in Washington, Oregon, California, and Nevada to get you the right auto part, at the best price, as quickly as possible. You can pull your own parts, have them pulled for you to pick up, or shop online. Connect with us today on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Google, and eBay.

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. —CARDONE Industries is celebrating its 40th anniversary of remanufacturing reliable and affordable automotive parts. Michael Cardone Sr. and son, Michael Cardone Jr., launched their business in a small storefront row home in North Philadelphia. In early 1970, CARDONE’s original “Factory Family” began with only six employees remanufacturing a single product line – wiper motors. Forty years later, they have grown to more than 5,000 employees, offering 70-plus product lines and more than 40,000 SKUs of new and remanufactured hard parts.

So we used them as one of the third party field service providers.When a customer would call us and say “Hey, something’s wrong with my computer,” the interesting thing is that about 85 or 90 percent of the time we could solve that problem, actually right on the phone. So we didn’t have to actually send the technician. But when we did, we knew exactly what the problem was and we could very accurately fix it the very next day. We’ve obviously advanced it and now we have two-hour service and four-hour service, for kind of mission-critical installations. Some of our customers say, “Hey, I want to have somebody there all the time, for 24 by seven. (We) do that too. So it becomes many, many different types of service offerings. Service is really an important part of our business that continues to evolve, particularly as we create more and more complicated products. The customer isn’t so much interested in all the bits and bytes and how fast is the computer and what does it do. They want to know that this installation of a critical system that they’re putting inside their business is really going to work well, so they’re looking for a solution. So we have to know a lot about their business, and we have to really be able to consult with them and tailor a solution that meets their needs.

Michael Dell: I would say it’s working with incredibly smart people in an industry where it’s right at the center of change, and you get to see so many changes are going on in all the industries around the world, and see how countries and societies are evolving, embracing this technology. I’m still getting my education, and get it every day when I travel around and meet with customers, meet with our teams. The industry, I think, is still very much in the early days in terms of how technology affects all parts of society.