A Startup Just 3D Printed in the Vacuum of Space

Printing where there is no air

Orbital Matter has completed the first 3D print in the open vacuum of space. The company's Replicator 2 satellite, launched in July, extruded a photopolymer resin and cured it with ultraviolet light while orbiting Earth outside any pressurised module. Every previous in-space manufacturing demo took place inside the International Space Station. This one did not.

The achievement clears the biggest unknown for building large structures in orbit. Without gravity to settle the material, without air to carry heat away, and with temperatures that swing far beyond anything a terrestrial workshop sees, printing in space is nothing like printing on a bench on Earth. Confirming that the printer could extrude and cure in those conditions is the foundation everything else is built on.

How the printer works in orbit

Replicator 2 is an 8U CubeSat carrying four independent 1U printer modules. Each module pushes liquid resin through a nozzle in a coiled rope shape, while UV light hardens the material layer by layer. The four printers operate independently, so a single successful print proves the concept even if the others fail.

Two of the printers are currently fine-tuning settings for microgravity and vacuum conditions. By the end of September, one should generate a 1-meter-long cylindrical beam to extend an antenna for a space services company. The other two are reserved for Orbital Matter's primary mission: printing two 1-meter beams in unison by mid-October that will deploy a stowed flexible solar array.

Why building in orbit changes the rules

Right now, spacecraft designers are limited by rocket fairing size. Solar arrays, booms, and antennas have to fold up like origami before launch, then unfold in a choreographed sequence once they reach orbit. That folding and deployment machinery adds weight, complexity, and failure points.

If structures can be printed directly in orbit, those size constraints disappear. Orbital Matter's long-term goal is to print beams capable of supporting 100-meter-long, 100-kilowatt solar arrays. Those kinds of arrays would be large enough to power next-generation edge computing satellites and orbital data centers.

A follow-up demonstration targeted before the end of 2027 plans to print two 3-meter beams that deploy a 1-kilowatt solar array. If that works, the company will have moved from a first layer in space to a functional power system built entirely on orbit.