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Varda Space Industries Orbital Factories
Is it possible to move messy manufacturing to space? Can the unique characteristics of space manufacturing produce out-of-this-world products and materials?
The company aims to kickstart the mass production of materials in space that either can't be produced on Earth or are developed faster and with higher quality in microgravity conditions."The world's first space factory's solar panels have found the sun and it's beginning to de-tumble," Varda announced on Twitter, shortly after the satellite was lifted to orbit aboard SpaceX's Transporter-8 mission on Monday, June 13.
(Via InterestingEngineering.)
As far as I know, the first use of the phrase orbital factory in science fiction occurred in Bind Your Sons To Exile, a 1976 novel by Jerry Pournelle. Arthur C. Clarke described orbiting factories several years later in The Fountains of Paradise.
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