Tethers Unlimited’s CEO, Bob Hoyt, envisions robots being used in space “to construct the infrastructure in space needed to support humanity’s expansion throughout the solar system,” in addition to space agencies using it to build things like solar panel arrays, radio antennas and telescope parts.
Tether Unlimited received funding from NASA for this and a range of other projects and is working on having a prototype of the SpiderFab ready by this summer, with the intention of launching a functioning spider into space in a few years. One day, an army of spiders could be used to create the space stations of tomorrow.
