Metal Additive Manufacturing Arrives at Westcott

At the beginning of May, the Catapult announced the procurement of a MetalFAB1 Additive Manufacturing (AM) system at our site within the Westcott Space Cluster.

We acquired this equipment to accelerate rocket propulsion manufacturing and testing at the Westcott Venture Park, and I’m pleased to say it has now successfully been commissioned following installation by technologists from Additive Industries.

With a successful validation build completed over the weekend of 12-13 June, the platform will now undergo a testing period with the Catapult’s Manufacturing for Space team.

The MetalFAB1 will be available for companies and organisations to use in three different ways:

• parts manufactured for them by the Catapult team,
• parts developed with them jointly to gain experience with the Catapult,
• or using the system independently where there is sufficient prior experience.

We are planning for the MetalFAB1 to be used for a combination of skills exposure, training and production of parts to support Westcott’s technology areas of rocket propulsion, drones and other autonomous systems, and 5G related capabilities.

If you are interested in using the system, please get in touch with me and the team by emailing facilities@sa.catapult.org.uk or calling 01235 428199.

The MetalFAB1 system set up in the Westcott Innovation Centre

Catapult and Additive Industries colleagues worked together on the validation build