NASA has unveiled details of a robotic system designed to construct and maintain structural components in space. The system, developed by NASA’s Automated Reconfigurable Mission Adaptive Digital Assembly Systems (ARMADAS) team, consists of inchworm-like robots that may one day assemble, repair, and reconfigure structural materials in orbit, on the lunar surface, or on other planets, before humans arrive.

A Scaling Omnidirectional Lattice Locomoting Explorer (SOLL-E) builder robot carries a soccer ball-sized building block called a voxel – short for volumetric pixel – during a demonstration of NASA’s ARMADAS technology
A Scaling Omnidirectional Lattice Locomoting Explorer (SOLL-E) builder robot carries a soccer ball-sized building block called a voxel – short for volumetric pixel – during a demonstration of NASA’s ARMADAS technology © NASA/Dominic Hart

Following the successful test, the team will now expand the library of voxel types that the robots can work with, including solar panels, electrical connections, and shielding. New robotic tools will also be explored such as inspection tools. NASA hopes that one day, the technology can be sent on deep space exploration missions, with robots disassembling the space structures and repurposing the building blocks into new structures as needed.

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Research engineer Christine Gregg inspects a Mobile Metamaterial Internal Co-Integrator (MMIC-I) builder robot.
Research engineer Christine Gregg inspects a Mobile Metamaterial Internal Co-Integrator (MMIC-I) builder robot. © NASA/Dominic Hart