“Spacecraft Building Spacecraft…In Space!”
The research arm of Arundal Astronautics Ltd focuses in the field of On-Orbit Manufacturing (OOM), which is part of the wider On Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) area of spacecraft engineering.
An OOM / OSAM facility could be thought of as an orbiting “factory” that manufactures spacecraft infrastructure (from struts, truss assemblies and shells / membranes, etc) and could revolutionise the way space is used and enable new space mission concepts.
The purpose of this broad area of research is to explore:
- How terrestrial manufacturing techniques and processes could be applied in the space environment
- Material logistics (i.e. movement through a system and also potential material sources)
- Opportunities for recycling – both Earth based waste and spacecraft debris salvaging
- Space mining on other planetary bodies and asteroids
- Product design for infrastructure (i.e. struts, trusses and shells) and how that would impact on an OOM facility
- Blue Sky concepts for OOM/OSAM, such as Interstellar flight and lunar / planetary colonies
- How to validate an OOM product (non-destructive testing in space for example)
- Potential mission concepts for manufacturing business models
- Advanced space robotics and autonomous capability
- Contribute knowledge towards a technology demonstrator to conduct experiments (i.e. manufacturing technique / automation etc)
You can keep up to date with the research by following Arundal Astronautics on YouTube.
Other Organisations working on OSAM / OOM Capability: