OREANDA-NEWS. As stated in the presentation presented by the first deputy general director of the state corporation Yuri Urlichich at the conference "Additive technologies. Expanding the horizons", Roscosmos intends to design the production compartment of the orbital station for printing objects using additive technologies.

In addition, specialists plan to formulate requirements for in-orbit printing and refine existing printing technologies. According to the presentation, with the help of such technologies it will be possible to manufacture structures of any complexity in zero gravity conditions in a short time. It follows from the presentation that the possibility of printing from lunar soil is considered in the future.

This step is part of the implementation of the plan announced about a year ago, in February 2020, by Vitaly Davydov, Deputy General Director of the Advanced Research Fund. Then he told RIA Novosti that the Foundation, together with Roskosmos, had begun developing a space 3D printer, which will be tested on the ISS, and in the future it is planned to use it to print large structures in space and elements of bases on the Moon and Mars.

A similar device has already been tested in orbit by foreign colleagues. In 2014, the American company Made in Space tested its 3D printer on the ISS. In 2018, Russia was the first in the world to test a bioprinter in orbit by printing human and animal tissues.