Making Space: Stratasys Global Director of Aerospace & Defense Conrad Smith Discusses the Space Supply Chain Council – 3DPrint.com

Varun June 27, 2025 3D Printing News

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Of all the many verticals that have been significant additive manufacturing (AM) adopters, few have been more deeply influenced by the incorporation of AM into their workflows than the space industry. Nonetheless, manufacturers are still just getting started in terms of tapping AM’s potential for space applications, and seemingly everyday, there are announcements of new AM use cases for launch, satellite components, in-space production, and just about every other area of the space value chain.

That context helps explain why the Commercial Space Federation, a Washington D.C. trade association representing companies across the space industry, recently announced the establishment of the Space Supply Chain Council (S2C2). Certainly, it explains why one of the organization’s three founding members is AM industry pioneer Stratasys.

AM has a multifaceted role to play in helping to grow the space ecosystem. In addition to unlocking new processes and products, the relatively lower capital expenditure when compared to setting up legacy manufacturing operations is a crucial advantage for helping lower the barrier to entry for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) targeting the space market.

With some analysts anticipating that the space industry will grow from around $600 billion to almost $2 trillion over the next decade, the highly concentrated industry needs to help SMEs expand quickly. According to Conrad Smith, the Global Director of Aerospace & Defense at Stratasys, this is a key piece of the rationale behind the S2C2’s founding. More specifically, as the organization’s name implies, the idea is to set up all those incoming businesses so they can succeed at helping the space industry at-large address supply chain disruptions:

“When you think about how many new entrants there are to the market, and how challenging it is to manufacture parts for the space industry, there has to be a structure in place to help the smaller, less experienced players get up-to-speed on the relevant technologies with as little trouble as possible,” Smith pointed out. “Given the end-to-end solutions that Stratasys offers, and our comprehensive experience in aerospace and space, it just made sense for us to be involved.

“Space obviously has some highly specialized components, as well as parts that are subject to long lead-time and long certification. Despite all the growth, there still aren’t a ton of suppliers out there that can do the necessary work. That probably comes into play most of all with the critical materials specific to the space industry’s needs, which are sourced from a much smaller base than is the case with most other industries.

“Especially when it comes to dealing with supply bottlenecks, then, being a part of an organization like what we’re building with S2C2 puts us in an ideal position to help bring awareness to what AM brings to the table, and enables us to share data with other companies looking to solve the same problems that we’re focused on solving. Stratasys is always seeking out opportunities to grow AM adoption by spreading knowledge.”

Stratasys has indeed been in the space industry for quite some time, with stories from the very early days of 3DPrint.com detailing how the Stratasys F900 printer and ULTEM thermoplastic were being used to help United Launch Alliance build the Atlas V rocket. More recently, the company announced last year that Northrop Grumman would sponsor the use of Stratasys materials in the first Space Science & Technology Evaluation Facility (SSTEF-1) mission.

An R&D initiative started by Aegis Aerospace as part of NASA’s Tipping Point program SSTEF-1 will, among other things, bring three different Stratasys materials to the lunar surface by an unmanned lander that will also feature a carrier structure 3D printed by Stratasys. Aside from illustrating just how much the space industry’s use of AM has branched out beyond rockets and CubeSats, that latter example also perfectly encapsulates the extent to which the space industry hinges on complex partnerships, involving both corporate giants and startups, and both private companies and the public sector.

“I don’t think it can be emphasized enough, how important it is to grow awareness when it comes to both the space industry, as well as AM,” asserted Smith. “It’s not just the big prime defense contractors that are a part of the Commercial Space Federation — maybe you’re a Tier 3 or Tier 4 supplier, and you’ve never worked with the space industry before, but your corporate profile aligns with the mission and you want to support it.

“We want to work with you, and AM is an enabling technology that can help your company achieve its goals of entering the space market in a variety of different ways, without too much upfront investment. That matters in terms of geography, too: the space industry is highly concentrated in areas like Florida’s Space Coast or Space Park in Southern California, but what if you’re, say, a small machine shop in the Midwest?

“It’s much easier now for those types of companies to tap into the growth opportunity that the space industry represents, in large part because of AM. Similarly, the S2C2 has great potential to connect those types of companies to the giants that have dominated the market historically, as demand continues to grow across the entire value chain.”

Assuming that, over the next decade, the space industry demonstrates anywhere close to the growth rate that analysts are anticipating, its diversification will no doubt proceed at a proportionate pace. At the same time, it can be expected that, at least in the near- to intermediate-term future, space industry expansion will be most pronounced in the market segments where the track record has already been proven, and the growth trajectory is already established.

Along those lines, the growth of the commercial satellite market may significantly outpace the robust growth forecast for the space industry as a whole. In fact, a recent Goldman Sachs report projects that this market will grow to at least seven times its current size over the next decade. That is good news for AM: in an AM Research report published in May, we found that by 2033, as many as half of all parts on satellites could be 3D printed.

Smith explained how, if the satellite industry is indeed able to achieve such lofty growth, it will be in no small part thanks to the lower barriers to entry enabled by AM — an advantage that the S2C2 could be instrumental in harnessing:

“It’s easier now than it ever has been in the past, whether you’re a government agency or a private company, to get your satellite on a launch. There’s dozens or maybe even hundreds of companies out there doing it now, whereas there was only a handful ten years ago. Honestly, it’s even easy to notice the growth that’s happening when you compare what the landscape looks like this year versus last year.

“I think that, the faster that new companies enter the market, the more crucial AM is going to be to the space ecosystem, if only because it can help those companies get their products to market more quickly than they’d be able to with most other production processes. It’s going to be equally important for those newcomers to partner with companies that have experience, because of how intense the regulatory requirements are for space applications.

“It’s important to keep in mind not just the ability to produce the parts, themselves, but also things like materials characterization. I think that’s what makes us, and the other members of the S2C2 so far — National Air Cargo and Applied Aerospace — the right companies to lead this kind of effort.”

Companies interested in joining the S2C2 should also keep in mind, you don’t necessarily have to have proficiency with producing exotic space industry parts in order to get started with the organization. Just like any other manufacturing sector vertical, the space industry also has strong demand for general industrial applications like tooling:

“Tooling is a large opportunity in addition to production parts,” Smith affirmed. “This is especially critical with how tight some of the tolerances are for the space industry, where complex geometries and lightweighting are such a high priority. The ability to work with ESD [electrostatic discharge]-safe materials, which is a huge strength for Stratasys, also matters here, because of all the sensitive electronics involved in space applications.

Tooling is a great way to create cross-sector collaboration between the space industry and other industries, whether we’re talking about companies manufacturing for the defense industrial base more broadly, or even companies in the auto sector, for instance. There could definitely be potential there to work with the new North American Stratasys Tooling Center that we just opened in Flint.”

As much as Stratasys has already done in the space industry, developments like the formation of the S2C2 emphasize how the story is just beginning.

“There’s some stuff we’re doing that’s really impressive that I can’t share just yet,” said Smith, appearing genuinely frustrated that he has to keep the news to himself, for now. “We’re covering all areas of space, I’ll just say that — it’s not just satellites.”

Images courtesy of Stratasys