If we want big things in space, we’ll have to build and assemble them there. Rocket fairings are not large enough to accommodate the large things we want to have in space. Not only that, but the stubborn rocket equation refuses to bend itself to our desires.

Telescopes like the JWST feature ingenious folding designs that unfold in space like insects metamorphosing. That was a very impressive way to bypass the restrictions imposed by rocket fairings. But that’s not practical in every case.

What’s far more feasible is sending smaller components into space inside fairings and then assembling them into a larger structure once there. That’s what NOM4D, the Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass-efficient Design program, is demonstrating. NOM4D reached an important milestone recently when it successfully demonstrated automated in-space assembly for the first time.