CNS stands for Center for Near Space a no-profit organization part of the Italian Institute for the Future that has the objective to promote the knowledge of the Space as the Fourth element for the humanity. 

By means of studies and initiative it would like to advance the large public familiarization with Space challenges and technologies in view of the future Space colonization. 

Themes as new Space architecture and innovative stations, new transportation spaceplanes, additive manufacturing in Space, fully regenerative life support concepts, crew collaborative robotics and artificial intelligence in Space, are examples of its areas of investigation.

In this context CNS launched early 2019 inside the Italian Aerospace major Universities a call for Thesis exploiting above themes. 

The first two Thesis have been completed in Piemonte Region through a collaboration between Politecnico di Torino, Thales Alenia Space and the small company Ellena specialized in Additive Manufacturing. The two corresponding CNS Awards will be assigned to the Politecnico di Torino MS graduated students which exploited respectively Additive Manufacturing on ground and in Space and a new Condensing Heat Exchanger solution for regenerative Life Support Systems manufactured using AM Techniques. 

Both prototypes will be also shown in the A&DM  Piemonte Agency exhibition area.

The advantages and the capability of the Additive Manufacturing Technology have been toroughly discussed in a lot of dedicated seminars and round tables in the past years. 

Medical (prosthesis), Aerospace, Automotive (racing) and Industrial Equipment found benefit when adopting this manufacturing technology  in prototyping and in the small series production as well.  Now is time to harvest the results obtained by the forerunners so far to extend the application to other parts, other fields and other materials and of course to other players. Increase the size and the complexity of the parts to be manufactured. Extend the concept of “Think additive” avoiding the replica of parts conceived for conventional manufacturing technology. Better understanding of the VALUE of a parts designed and produced ADDITIVE. Facing proactively with the issues of process qualification and product certification especially in the aerospace field. The business management  must be deeply reengineered to exploit the capabilities and the opportunities that this technology can offer.