Hans-Jörg Fecht - Metallurgy in Space: Recent Results from ISS

During my first mission to the International Space Station (ISS), called Blue Dot, it was one of my main tasks to install the electromagnetic levitator (EML) in ESAs magnificent Columbus laboratory. This furnace represents one of the most impressive material science experiments in space. It can heat a metallic alloy to 2200 C and then cool and solidify it rapidly, while the molten droplet remains freely suspended and undisturbed in the experiment chamber. This is impossible to achieve on Earth.

Material scientists study these free-floating droplets in order to obtain characteristic thermophysical properties of the molten alloy in its liquid state. These thermophysical property data are needed for the development of computer models that simulate industrial production processes on Earth. Consequently, this increases the production efficiency and the quality of end products and reduces the energy consumption in line with major global efforts of green energy. It is a good example for why we sometimes have to go to a strange and hostile place like space to improve things down here on Earth.

As a result, the better material performance on Earth leads to reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, for example, in advanced turbines for aircraft and land-based power generation. Other materials that were studied by scientists all around the world using the material science laboratory on board the ISS are, for example, high-strength steels, low-weight titanium-alloys for a wide range of applications from aerospace to biomedicine, new semiconductors for photovoltaics, and new metallic glass alloys designed for future rovers on the Moon and Mars.

From this impressive list of potential benefits that can be obtained by operating a device like EML on ISS, you can probably estimate the weight on the shoulders of an astronaut who is given the complex task to install such a device. In contrary to the assumption of most humans on Earth, an astronauts biggest fear is not to end up in a fireball during launch (even though admittedly that is also not a nice thought, it is relatively unlikely) but to make a mistake that endangers the success of the many invaluable experiments, designed and built by hundreds of engineers and scientists over the course of many years. To disappoint them would be a true failure for us.

You can now probably imagine the feeling of terror that I had when, during the installation of EML, I realized that one of the launch fasteners that secured the hardware from the massive vibrations during its launch was stuck and couldnt be removed. What was even worse, it prevented the final assembly of EML, and therefore it threatened the entire project just a single tiny bolt, in a very difficult place to access. But what followed was one of the finest examples of what an international team of experts can achieve when they all work together.

A crisis team was formed, consisting of our mission ground team, engineers, and me, the astronaut in orbit. In the following weeks, we went through various options of removing the stuck bolt and meticulously analyzed the risks of each approach. In the end, ground teams allowed me to go ahead with the option we called MacGyver, which, needless to say, was my favorite: I got the GO to cut off the bolt with a metal saw blade, using a very special liquid to catch and prevent metal shavings from contaminating the stations atmosphere a dab of shaving gel from my personal hygiene kit. In my imagination I could see my childhood hero nodding at me with a smile.

Almost exactly 4 years later, I returned to the International Space Station for my second mission, called Horizons, as the Commander of Expedition 57. One of the first things I did when arriving on ISS was to visit my favorite workplace in space, the ever-so-magnificent Columbus laboratory. And what I saw made me smile. I could see that the EML was still in its place, where I left it several years before, and it was still running flawlessly. It was operated very successfully and routinely by the international science team, conducting hundreds of experiment runs in the last years, for the benefit of humans on planet Earth. Hence, I am very excited about the results that the scientists have obtained on board the ISS and that are presented in this book.