This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: If we want big things in space, we'll have to build and assemble them there. Rocket fairings are not large enough to accommodate the large things we want to have in space.
Not only that, but the stubborn rocket equation refuses to bend itself to our desires. Telescopes like the JWST feature ingenious folding designs that unfold in space like insects metamorphosing. That was a very impressive way to bypass the restrictions imposed by rocket fairings.
But that's not practical in every case. What's far more feasible is sending smaller components into space inside fairings and then assembling them into a larger structure once there. That's what NOM4D, the Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design program, is demonstrating.
NOM4D reached an important milestone recently when it successfully demonstrated automated in-space assembly for the first time. The demonstration involved a gantry robot, also known as a linear robot, building a typical truss structure. Gantry robots move in straight lines along x, y and z axes.
The payload came from Caltech and consisted of individual components with custom joints put together to form the structure. The individual components were not only assembled, but a thin reflective mesh that mimics what a space-based antenna might have was also simultaneously applied. "NOM4D's objective is to enable efficient, scalable construction of very large structures in space," said Andrew Detor, NOM4D program manager.
"By 'very large,' I mean hundreds of meters or kilometers in scale. Nothing approaching that scale can be achieved today." There is no shortage of ideas of how space-based manufacturing and construction could be used, but it all starts with programs like NOM4D. NOM4D is fairly simple at this point, like a child's construction toy, but that's its strength.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
