Redwire and Microsoft to resurrect the Zune in space

Well, I didn’t expect to see Zune come across the news desk this week. I could probably leave you with the headline, and most of you would be surprised to see the name but not shocked the failed MP3 player can only be used as a PR stunt now.

Anyways, what is the Zune doing in space? Well, there’s both a fictional and non-fictional part to this story.

Redwire, Microsoft, and checks notes, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, are teaming up with a relaunched Zune.net to provide STEM material to children and introduce them to 3D printing.

What does the ISS have to do with this?

Redwire Space currently has two 3D printers onboard the International Space Station. The newest one was launched on top of an Antares rocket last November to the ISS via a Cygnus spacecraft. Called the BioFabrication Facility, it can 3D print human tissue in ways that can’t be down here on Earth.

While that is cool, that won’t be able to print a Zune, and nothing is as cool as a Zune, said some Microsoft executive 15 years ago, probably. Enter the Additive Manufacturing Facility or AMF, which has been operational on the ISS since 2016. The AMF has printed hundreds of spare parts and tools that would have otherwise needed to wait months for the next resupply launch to get to the station.

Microsoft will use this to bring the Zune into the space age. That’s right, some astronaut will have the honor of 3D printing the wonderfully brown block that is Microsoft’s Zune. It honestly is really cool that this is even possible and having these printers in space has opened up so many possiblities that wasn’t possible before.

3D printing has made huge strides in recent years in the space industry, with it being a feature of almost every commercial space station planned to replace the ISS in 2030. Also, the first 3D-printed rocket, Relativity’s Terran 1, lifted off from Cape Canaveral earlier this year. The future of space will feature additive manufacturing everywhere it can for its convenience while in space and rapid prototyping here on Earth.

Why is this a thing?

This is a big program to boost STEM material to children and promote the release of the latest Guardians of the Galaxy movie, in which one of the main characters, Starlord, carries a Zune 30.

If you’re a teacher, there’s even teaching material you can find on the revamped Zune.net, and if you are someone that has visited this website before this revampt, you’re cool, I like you.

What is the Zune?

I hate that I have to write this section, but since I recently had the privilege of joking for the first time a past life event was “just a few years ago” when in fact, it was over a decade ago, I feel I must explain this product.

So for the kids out there that grew up only with an iPhone or iPod touch, there was a time when MP3 players (this is what we called them… well we actually all had iPods) were their own product and weren’t just built into phones. Apple was, of course, dominating the market with its iPod lineup, and good old Microsoft believed it had a chance with the Zune. I remember when my parents got me mine and said, “It does everything the iPod does.” Sigh. Emotionally, I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from that.

Anyways, yeah turns out Apple’s system was better, and Microsoft spent more time trying to match the iPod than atually compete, and the product was discontinued in, I think, 2011? That’s how much I don’t care. I’m not looking it up, not worth it.

It looks like the Zune will finally make it to space after all being what I’m dubbing the first 3D-printed MP3 player in space. However, it won’t be able to play any music… which the iPod did when it went into space back in 2006.