Design and Development of a Modular Autonomous In-Space Manufacturing and Robotic Assembly Framework for Sustainable Orbital Infrastructure.

The Orbital Artisan Foundry (OAF) proposes a modular, autonomous in-space manufacturing architecture for the fabrication, assembly, maintenance, and lifecycle management of orbital infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The system integrates additive manufacturing, robotic material handling and assembly, autonomous repair mechanisms, redundancy management, and material recycling into a unified manufacturing framework. Rather than relying exclusively on transporting fully manufactured replacement components from Earth, OAF investigates the feasibility of deploying manufacturing capabilities and feedstock in orbit to produce mission-specific components, replacement parts, structural elements, and experimental hardware on demand. Its architecture incorporates power and thermal management, communication and ground-control interfaces, and fault-tolerant subsystem configurations. The accompanying mathematical framework evaluates this approach through an Equivalent Mission Fulfillment methodology, comparing the Earth-delivered mass requirements of conventional resupply and orbital manufacturing architectures while maintaining equivalent mission objectives. The broader objective is to investigate a scalable approach to sustainable orbital infrastructure, reduced dependence on Earth-based resupply, and increased operational flexibility for future space missions.