ISS gets new printers adapted for weightlessness after 20 years
The ISS has many advanced instruments, as well as two twenty-year-old Epson 800 printers. The maintenance of these inkjet printers has become too difficult. Therefore, they will soon be replaced by HP printers modified for weightlessness.
Printing in the ISS is necessary, not only for snapshots of the home front, but also to have working documents and procedure descriptions on paper if the power goes out and the available computer screens cannot be used.
Epson declined an invitation from NASA to develop a new printer; HP did. A NASA executive, Stephen Hunter, said in an interview with website Collectspace that the astronauts wanted to use an existing commercial printer again, which is then modified. The problem with that is that printers today can do more than just print. Scanning and copying is convenient, but if the glass in the room were to break, it could immediately become an emergency. One of the modifications is therefore the removal of the glass plate.
Ultimately, the choice fell on an existing OfficeJet 5740 printer. According to Hunter, the HP printer is already well suited for operation in weightless situations at the paper feed point, because a small arm feeds the paper into the printer and a roller system lifts the top of the paper. No serious adjustments were needed at this point.
That was different when collecting the sheets once printed. Without the addition of a fixer when collecting the prints, the cabin would be full of swirling A4 pages in no time. To solve this, a special part made by a 3D printer was added to the printer, a kind of tray with flexible fingers that simulates the gravity that grabs the paper, as it were.
Ink can also be a problem in space. Laser printers were considered too dangerous, partly because of the excessive power requirement, but also because floating, leaked ink can lead to contamination. No modifications were necessary with the cartridges and printheads, but ink drops can theoretically escape from the printer. To solve that problem, HP filled in a lot of open space in the printer and covered many gaps with tape. Furthermore, adjustments have been made to the system that moves the print head, and the printer is made of refractory materials.
A copy of the new custom printer, dubbed HP Envy ISS, is on its way to the ISS after being launched Monday from a Dragon capsule by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The printer is likely to be commissioned for the first time sometime in May.
Below is the modified HP Envy ISS