Up till now, we used to do all kinds of constructional work here on Earth. However, that is about to change now. Nasa has awarded a $142 million fund to Colorado-based Maxar Technologies which is developing the world’s first in-space construction technology for NASA – satellites only as of now. Maxar Technologies has created a beam-manufacturing device known as MakerSat, which can build a structural beam and robotic assembly of a communication antenna on satellites and ISS.

However, Maxar Technologies is not alone in the creation of this in-space construction technology; Tethers Unlimited, West Virginia Robotic Technology Center, NASA’s Langley Research Center and other partnering companies also assisted in the development of in-space construction tech. The new technology will go into space aboard NASA’s Restore-L spacecraft, which is solely made by the Maxar Technologies for NASA.

The Restore-L spacecraft will go into low Earth orbit and work on the Landsat 7 Earth-observing satellite for the initial testing process.

Once the spacecraft successfully arrives on the Landsat 7 satellite, the Maxar’s SPIDER robot – the assembly builder – will take on the assembly construction task. The SPIDER robot has a 16-foot-long arm that is designed to construct a seven-element structure of a 9-foot-wide communication antenna.

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