Dive Brief:

• The next generation of construction could be in outer space. And the new construction workers could be robots.

• NASA has awarded $500,000 to a space technology development company to design space-bound robots—called “spiderbots” because of their many long “arms”—to build massive structures in space, like satellites and space stations.

• The robots will assemble the structures—some of which will measure half a mile wide—with components created on 3-D printers, which will be delivered via spacecraft to the building site in space.

Dive Insight:

Eventually the robots could be capable of building antennas the size of football fields for use in the search for unknown planets and extraterrestrial life.