NASA JPL Tests 3D-Printed Titanium Spring Deployment Device in Orbit

A titanium spring the size of a paperback book, 3D-printed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, deployed on command in low Earth orbit on February 3, proving that additive manufacturing can produce fully operational deployable mechanisms for spaceflight. The device, called the JPL Additive Compliant Canister (JACC), popped out of its canister aboard Proteus Space's Mercury One satellite as an onboard camera captured the event, with the spacecraft passing over the Pacific Ocean at the time of deployment.

JACC rode to orbit on SpaceX's Transporter-15 rideshare mission, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on November 28, 2025. The device spent several months on orbit before JPL commanded the deployment on February 3, 2026. "The JPL Additive Compliant Canister survived launch and several months on orbit prior to popping open on command," said Christine Gebara, a mechatronics engineer at JPL. "JACC demonstrates how additive manufacturing can reduce part count and improve compliant mechanisms in space."

The engineering case for JACC centers on part consolidation. What would normally require five separate components, a hinge, a panel, a compression spring, and two torsion springs, was printed as a single titanium structure, cutting part count to roughly one-third of a conventionally manufactured equivalent. The spring itself was printed in Ti-6Al-4V on an EOS M290 powder bed fusion system at JPL. Stowed, the whole package measures approximately 10 cm per side and weighs 498 grams. The spring compresses to around 3 cm and extends to 15 cm when deployed, a stroke of roughly one inch to six inches.

Douglas Hofmann, Senior Research Scientist and Principal at JPL, has described the lab's broader push to embed springs, flexures, and mechanisms directly into structural hardware using metal additive manufacturing, targeting applications including deployment, flexible thermal management, pointing, and manipulation. The JACC design draws on architecture principles from standard satellite communication antennas and features what JPL describes as a novel embedded kinematic hinge architecture. The entire development cycle, from initial concept to delivered flight hardware, ran under one year.

JACC was one of two JPL technology demonstrators aboard Mercury One, both aimed at minimizing stowed volume while preserving precise deployment performance for future antenna arrays. Funding came from JPL's internal research and development budget and NASA's Earth Science Technology Office. JPL's own summary of the test was direct: "The success of JACC demonstrates that 3D-printed mechanisms can be built faster, cheaper and with less complexity than traditionally manufactured space hardware."

The implications extend well beyond smallsat antennas. Universe Today noted the relevance to NASA's Artemis program and plans for long-duration habitats near the Moon's southern polar region, where minimizing stowed hardware volume and enabling on-site fabrication matter considerably. For the 3D printing community, JACC is a concrete data point: a DfAM-optimized compliant mechanism, printed in Ti-6Al-4V on a production-class EOS M290, cleared launch loads, survived months in the thermal and radiation environment of LEO, and executed a precision deployment on the first command.