The U.S. military has awarded contracts under a new program to address in-space manufacturing needs, as part of a larger effort to reduce the costs of spaceflight.
Space manufacturing could allow humanity to build large structures efficiently, using materials launched from Earth or harvested on another world such as the moon or Mars. Such work could conceivably begin on the moon in the not-too-distant future, especially with the arrival of private landing missions as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
In-space manufacturing is still in its infancy, and the U.S. military wants to help it along. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently kicked off work with eight teams to show proofs of concept “to enable production of future space structures on orbit without the volume constraints imposed by launch,” DARPA officials stated a few weeks ago.
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