Review of space manufacturing technique and developments

Abstract

Space manufacturing is recognized as one of the key technologies for enhancing human’s extraterrestrial activities and carrying out deep-space exploration missions. Therefore, it has become the frontier of scientific and application research. Compared to conventional manufacturing on the Earth, there are higher requirements and more demands for space manufacturing owing to the proposed missions such as space station operation, lunar base construction, and deep-space exploration. Specifically, the characteristics of environment, including long-term microgravity, strong irradiation, and high vacuum in space, create new challenges for space manufacturing. In addition, there are other technical challenges in the manufacturing accuracy, power consumption, size of manufacturing devices, and intelligence production to adapt to specific application scenarios in space missions. This paper summarizes the research progress on the main technologies in space manufacturing in the world, focuses on the development of space manufacturing on the basis of polymeric, metallic, ceramic, composite, and biomaterials, and discusses several future main directions and trends of space manufacturing to provide a reference for the development of China’s space manufacturing technology.