Space factories from science fiction to reality

Not too long ago, the space economy was a government endeavour. But, as Ben Evans reports, commercial players are rapidly changing what the future looks like for industry in space – with far-reaching consequences

One October day in 1969, Soviet cosmonauts Georgi Shonin and Valeri Kubasov attempted in-space manufacturing for the first time. They closed the hatch to the orbital module of their Soyuz 6 spacecraft, retreated to the descent module and activated a vacuum-welding furnace for a series of autonomous tests. What happened next could have killed them both. Three months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, a dispirited yet resurgent Soviet Union realigned its efforts to building Earthcircling space stations. Cosmonauts would no longer simply visit space, but live there. And that meant assembling huge off-world structures, fixing or strengthening components weakened by long-term exposure to the low-gravity, high-vacuum and highradiation environment in Earth orbit. Aboard Soyuz 6 was a squat green cylinder the size of a small…

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BBC Sky at Night United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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