The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has fast-tracked the third phase of its NOM4D program aimed at building large structures in Earth orbit to two in-space demonstrations instead of laboratory tests.
Andrew Detor, the program’s manager, said that “the maturity is there” after NOM4D’s first two phases, and space demos would be more impactful. He noted that the program’s two performers, the California Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, now have space launch companies as partners for in-space testing of their assembly methods and materials.
“Pushing the performers to do a demo in space means they can’t just sweep challenges under the rug like they could in a lab. You better figure out how it’s going to survive in the space environment,” the NOM4D program manager remarked.
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Launch Partners & Test Focus Areas
Caltech’s focus in NOM4D is mass-efficient in-space manufacturing designs. It has partnered with Momentus for its technology demo aboard the Momentus Vigoride Orbital Services Vehicle scheduled for low Earth orbit launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-16 mission in February 2026.
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s NOM4D work centers on in-space materials and manufacturing for which it has developed a high-precision, in-space composite-forming process. Voyager Space, which has rebranded to Voyager Technologies, is its partner for the demo launch to the International Space Station aboard NASA’s Commercial Resupply Mission NG-24, tentatively set for April 2026. The Bishop Airlock module attached to ISS will host the demo.
Third Phase 3 Test at NASA Marshall
The University of Florida, NOM4D’s third team, is not joining the in-space Phase 3 tests and instead working on innovative laser sheet metal bending techniques for space manufacturing. It is maturing the capability at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
DARPA launched NOM4D, which stands for Novel Orbital Moon Manufacturing, Materials and Mass Efficient Design, in March 2022, with eight industry and university teams participating in the three-phase program.