2024 ISIEX – Bringing manufacturing technologies to the space industry

March 18, 2024

2024 ISIEX, an exhibition specializing in space development technologies, was held at Tokyo Big Sight in Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan, from February 20 to 22, 2024. In addition to the many exhibits of lunar exploration components, factory automation companies also showcased their products and technologies for the space industry.

Sugino Machine (Toyama, Japan; President & CEO: Yoshiaki Sugino) showcased its additive manufacturing (AM) post-processing technology ( = photo). The company uses a high-pressure water jet to improve the surface roughness of molded parts and increase their fatigue resistance. The person in charge of the technology said, “We have been researching this technology for aircraft parts and other applications. In the aerospace industry, weight reduction and miniaturization of parts are very important, and we believe that AM technology will be used more and more, so we proposed this technology with a view to the future”.

At the booth of KANEMATSU, a general trading company, “spherical gears” that can rotate indefinitely in three directions attracted a lot of attention. Professor Riichiro Tadakuma of Yamagata University, an expert in spherical gear research, emphasized their compact nature and exceptional flexibility of motion, making them ideal for robotic applications in space environments.