BLOG » Orbits and overheads: how the UPM-Sat 3 project reduced administrative friction through digital manufacturing

Orbits and overheads: how the UPM-Sat 3 project reduced administrative friction through digital manufacturing

At a public university in Madrid, researchers are developing the UPM-Sat 3 satellite as part of their aerospace programme. For Ignacio Torralbo Gimeno and his team, the main obstacle was not technical complexity but administrative delay.

Although the institute had worked with MISUMI for 15 years on standard components, manufacturing custom parts remained difficult. Public procurement involved extensive paperwork and slow processes. Traditional workshops often resisted single, bespoke aerospace parts. As a result, the team faced repeated exchanges with suppliers and delays moving from digital design to physical hardware.

Removing the quotation loop

The main change came from eliminating the manual quotation process, described as a time-consuming delay. Previously, each design revision required waiting for a price from a supplier.

With meviy, uploading a STEP file generates immediate pricing and feedback. This speed is essential in a student-led research setting, where designs evolve weekly.

“For us, it has completely changed how we deal with manufacturing all of these small parts. We iterate a lot; we are changing the design from one week to another because changes happen and we work with students. It was very difficult to find companies willing to produce just a very small, single piece, but now we can just update the CAD model directly into the platform and get an instant quotation without having to bother anyone.” — Ignacio Torralbo Gimeno, Technical Lead

The logic of the “batch size of one”

In aerospace R&D, mass production is an afterthought; the “batch size of one” is the daily reality. Traditional local workshops in Madrid often resist these tiny, complex orders or apply exorbitant fees to justify the machine setup time. meviy’s automated infrastructure removes this hurdle, treating a single bespoke bracket with the same efficiency as a full production run.

When outsourcing is a capex avoidance strategy

One of the most compelling insights for the institute was that using a professional digital platform was frequently more cost-effective than “doing it yourself.” While the institute possesses a large router (primarily used for hydrodynamics research like bridges and stadiums) and a small internal CNC, they lacked the rigidity for aerospace-grade stainless steel and the qualified personnel to run professional equipment full-time.

By using meviy, the university effectively avoids the massive Capital Expenditure (CapEx) of a €100k 5-axis mill and the associated maintenance. Furthermore, the platform offers strategic cost-down measures: when the project isn’t in a rush, Ignacio selects the 25-day delivery option, significantly reducing the price. This allows researchers to stop “teaching themselves” basic machining—an inefficient use of specialist minds—and focus on core engineering.

“As a research institute that is part of a public university, procurement is usually complicated by huge paperwork. Before meviy, we tried to do it ourselves with a small mini-machine, but we didn’t have qualified personnel to stay with it full-time. Now, it is so much cheaper than what we were paying—sometimes it is even cheaper to send it to the platform than to try and produce it ourselves internally.” — Executive Stakeholder, Public Research Institute

Meeting space standards

UPM-Sat 3 is built for orbital conditions. It requires tolerances and surface finishes that many online platforms cannot achieve.

The institute benchmarked meviy against other companies. For precision milling in aluminium and stainless steel, both essential for space-rated hardware, Ignacio found meviy’s quality “much higher”.

That precision directly affects thermal control.

The team relies on meviy for black anodising. This finish manages thermal optical properties. In orbit, infrared emissivity and solar absorption determine whether a satellite overheats in direct sunlight or freezes in Earth’s shadow.

By meeting strict European Space Agency (ESA) standards (ISA), meviy supports the mission’s technical integrity.

Reclaiming the engineer’s time

The broader implication for any high-tech organisation is the decoupling of manufacturing from administrative delay. Digital manufacturing is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity for reclaiming an engineer’s most valuable resource: focus. By purging the “huge paperwork” and the manual quotation loop, the Madrid team has shifted from managing machine maintenance to managing mission success. This shift ensures that testing campaigns stay on track and that specialised researchers remain researchers, not machine operators.

The Future of orbital efficiency

The partnership may extend to joint testing of thermal optical properties for surface treatments. This would strengthen data available for future space projects.