ESA’s Orbital Metal 3D Printer Hits Its Fifth Sample — a Step Closer to Operational Use

Key takeaways

ESA’s Metal 3D Printer Technology Demonstrator — the first metal 3D printer in orbit, aboard the ISS since 2024 — has now produced its fifth sample.
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot retrieved the sample during the εpsilon mission and reset the machine for its next print.
The part flew home aboard the CRS SpX-34 cargo craft and will be analysed at Germany’s DLR and at ESA’s ESTEC centre.
Three earlier samples are already on the ground; ESA says the analysis results will be published “in the coming weeks.”
The demonstrator is a concrete step toward crew autonomy — making spare parts on demand instead of shipping every component from Earth.

Printing plastic in microgravity is one thing. Printing metal — melting an alloy with a laser inside a sealed box, 400 km above the planet — is a different order of difficulty, and ESA just cleared another rung of it. The agency’s Metal 3D Printer Technology Demonstrator, the first metal 3D printer ever flown to the International Space Station, has produced its fifth sample. ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot pulled the part from the machine during her εpsilon mission and prepared the printer for its next run — nudging an experiment that began in 2024 closer to something operational.

What Sophie Adenot actually did in orbit

Adenot’s task was twofold. First, she retrieved the fifth printed sample and showed it to the ground teams. Then she reset the hardware for the next activity, installing a fresh substrate — the baseplate the metal is deposited onto — that already carried a partially printed element. That earlier print had been halted following an anomaly, and the teams now want to test a recovery procedure and finish the job later this year. It’s the unglamorous, essential work of turning a lab demo into a dependable tool.

“3D printers are far from being simple gadgets, and I’m delighted to have worked on this European technology demonstration for the future of human spaceflight,” Adenot said, thanking the CADMOS User Support Centre teams who guided her through the procedure. The retrieved print was loaded onto the CRS SpX-34 spacecraft for the trip home, where it will be tested at both the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and ESTEC, ESA’s technical heart in the Netherlands.

Why on-orbit metal printing matters

At the altitude of the ISS, resupply is routine — ESA notes that six cargo missions have already departed the Station in 2026 after dropping off supplies. But that convenience evaporates the moment crews head for the Moon or Mars. Carrying a spare for every conceivable failure is impractical, and a rescue launch may be impossible. The ability to manufacture a replacement bracket, tool, or fitting in situ becomes a genuine safety and mission-continuity capability, not a nice-to-have.

That’s why each of the five prints has been designed to stress a different aspect of the process. Three samples have already returned to Earth and been examined at ESTEC and at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), where their quality and microstructure were compared — at both macro and micro scale — against reference parts printed on an identical machine on the ground. “ESA is now well-positioned to take the next step towards in-orbit metal 3D-printing,” said ESA technical officer Rob Postema, pointing to a clearer picture of the printer’s capabilities, limits, and quirks in a crewed environment.

Where the hardware came from

The demonstrator was built by an industrial team led by Airbus Defence and Space under an ESA contract, with co-funding from Airbus. Day-to-day, it’s operated by the CADMOS User Support and Operations Centre of the French space agency CNES, with support from ESA and Airbus teams. It’s a distinctly European project — and one that dovetails with the wider industry push into aerospace-grade metal additive manufacturing that we’ve been tracking on the ground.

What happens next

Two things to watch. Near-term, ESA says the analysis of the earlier samples will be published in the coming weeks — the first real data on how orbit-made metal compares to Earth-made metal. Slightly further out, the teams plan to run their anomaly-recovery procedure and complete the interrupted print later in 2026. Neither is a finished product, but together they mark the transition of on-orbit metal printing from “can we even do this?” to “how good can we make it?” For a technology pitched as the key to crew self-sufficiency on long journeys, that’s the question that counts.

FAQ

What is ESA’s Metal 3D Printer Technology Demonstrator?

It’s the first metal 3D printer flown to the International Space Station, launched in 2024 to test whether metal parts can be manufactured reliably in microgravity. It has now produced five samples.

Who retrieved the fifth sample?

ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, during her εpsilon mission. She removed the sample and prepared the printer for its next run before the part was returned to Earth aboard the CRS SpX-34 cargo spacecraft.

Why print metal parts in space instead of launching them?

On long-duration missions far from Earth, carrying spares for every possible failure is impractical and resupply may be impossible. On-demand manufacturing lets crews make tools and replacement parts as needed, supporting mission autonomy and safety.

When will we know how good the parts are?

ESA says the analysis of three earlier samples — carried out at ESTEC and the Technical University of Denmark — will be published in the coming weeks. The newly returned fifth sample will be tested at DLR and ESTEC.

Sources: ESA — “3D-printed metal: unlocking crew autonomy” (21/07/2026); ESA — “ESA 3D prints first metal part on the International Space Station”; 3DPrint.com — News Briefs, July 25, 2026.