“A robotic truss builder that was conceived, designed, and built by Caltech researchers and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has successfully built a structure in space—without the help of astronauts—for the first time. The truss builder, part of DARPA’s Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program, consists of an autonomous manipulator that picks up struts and joints held in nearby dispensers to repeatedly assemble identical sections, or bays, of a perimeter truss…

According to DARPA, the autonomous robotic assembly is akin to piecing together a high-tech K’Nex or Tinkertoy structure…

Although the team ran into time limitations and was only able to build the initial section of the antenna, the demonstration has shown the feasibility of the proposed assembly concept, which is scalable to very large perimeter trusses holding giant reflective surfaces.”

From Caltech.