Beyond Earth: The Future of In-Space Servicing

Manufacturing and servicing facilities in space are (finally) moving from the pages of science fiction to reality. For decades, we've seen movies with scenes of spacecraft being created and serviced in beautifully rendered factories with Earth in the background. And many more ideas have come from authors imagining bold futures where humanity does everything from creating giant nets of satellites to massive, spinning space stations. Some might lament that, back in reality, we’ve come so far with our achievements in space yet fallen short of the brightest visions. How can we have landed on the Moon 50 years ago and still be scrapping billion-dollar satellites when they run out of fuel? However, there’s good reason to believe that the space industry is almost done laying the foundations that will let us move from science fiction to engineering reality.