In-Space Manufacturing Ecosystem and Drivers

Other In-Space Services

Technology demonstrations These will be required for all In-Space manufacturing and especially proximity or tandem services to increase confidence with stakeholders. All links in the supply and service chain will have to be tested or simulated on Earth, providing opportunities for a wide range of expert stakeholders.

Space Tugs or ‘In-Space Transportation Services’ Space tugs involve transportation of satellites once they are in orbit, not always for life extension purposes but for allowing for more flexibility and access to specific orbits, including orbit raising from LEO to GEO.

D-Orbit provides “Space Taxi” services using their ION platform for precision deployment of spacecraft in orbit. The first two IONs will be launched in 2020 deploying multiple customer payloads to exact destinations on orbit.

Airbus’s O.Cubed Service plans to offer a suite of in-orbit services operated by a Space Tug including maintenance (life extension, relocation, upgrades and inspections), logistics (second leg delivery, constellation deployment) and clean up (ADR) services.

Government / Defence Governments and defence agencies will continue to be a main driver in new satellite technologies, and in this case, for In-Space Services. They have already funded and created many of the largest OOS (OnOrbit Servicing) projects such as: NASA’s $73.7 million contract to Made in Space for their Archinaut One demonstration mission, the Lunar Gateway project in which NASA is working with partners to build a space station in lunar orbit planned for 2026 (which NASA has a 2020 budget of $812.4 million) and China continuing their Tiangong programme to create their own Chinese Space Station. DARPA, a US defence agency, is also working with commercial partners to launch their RSGS Servicing Satellite to demonstrate satellite servicing for the US government. The symbiosis between government / defence agencies, and commercial companies is a force for innovation that has worked especially well for the American space industry.

Resource Mining Resource mining is a distant future industry that plans to mine for raw materials on near earth asteroids and is an industry that will build on the current developments within the In-Space Services sector. The UK companies Asteroid Mining Corporation and Blue Asteroids have aims in identifying mining opportunities and developing technologies in prospecting asteroids with a goal of mining in the 2030s. .

Space tourism & off-planet habitats Space tourism encompasses a few different aspects of space including sub-orbital launches to experience microgravity, lunar flybys and space station stays (previously done by the Russian space agency Roscosmos from 2001 – 2009). Virgin