Horizon Microtechnologies is scaling production of metallised polymer components for satellites through the IP-MASS project, a two-year programme funded with €500,000 and supported by selection into ESA Phi-Lab Austria.
The company combines precision polymer 3D printing with conformal metal coating to produce spacecraft hardware. The approach reduces component weight by 40% compared to conventional aluminium parts while enabling 3D printing's design and cost advantages.
IP-MASS targets manufacturing 50,000 precision-coated satellite components with repeatable processes suited to constellation-scale demand. Initial focus includes shielding housings and passive RF hardware, but the programme seeks additional spacecraft applications where lightweight printed geometry and functional metallic surfaces could provide technical or manufacturing advantages.
Horizon subjected metallised polymer demonstrators to LEO environmental tests including outgassing, temperature shock, radiation, mechanical shock, material fatigue and atomic-oxygen exposure. For high-volume satellite architectures such as phased-array payloads, components used hundreds of times per spacecraft and across hundreds of satellites can transform component-level savings into significant programme-level gains.
CEO Andreas Frölich stated, "The next challenge is industrial: achieving the prices, lead times, repeatability and throughput needed when a component is required not once or ten times, but thousands or tens of thousands of times."
The company invites partners with anticipated component demand of 100 units per year or more to collaborate, including early-stage concepts where design-for-manufacturability decisions remain open.