{"id":393422,"date":"2026-04-23T08:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393422\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T08:01:09","slug":"can-chinese-scientists-bring-nasas-space-spider-dream-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/393422\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Chinese scientists bring Nasa\u2019s \u2018space spider\u2019 dream to life?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, Nasa<\/a> funded a project called SpiderFab \u2013 a spider-like robot that would crawl through orbit, weaving solar power stations and giant antennas from spools of carbon fibre \u2013 creating structures too large for any rocket to carry whole.<\/p>\n

Although SpiderFab never ended up in space, scientists from the Shenyang Institute of Automation in northern China say they have built the key technologies to reach a similar goal.<\/p>\n

The team first made the building blocks from a carbon-fibre composite, shaping it into long, hollow tubes using heat and pressure. They then added 3D-printed connectors, bonding the tubes to the joints with lasers to create strong, lightweight links without bolts or glue.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

02:19<\/p>\n

Meet the spider robot that 3D prints homes on Earth and possibly the moon<\/p>\n

Meet the spider robot that 3D prints homes on Earth and possibly the moon<\/p>\n

The researchers built a scaled-down antenna structure in the lab to show that the idea worked, they reported in the journal Space: Science & Technology on April 3.<\/p>\n

The study offers a lightweight, high-strength and reliable approach to building large space structures in orbit, according to the institute, which was added to the US Entity List<\/a> in 2022 over alleged links to China\u2019s military, hampering its access US technology and tech resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding structures in orbit removes the need to fold them into rockets or worry about size limits. Parts can be made, joined and assembled directly in space \u2013 potentially a core technology for next-generation space systems,\u201d the institute said.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s spacecraft are built on Earth and launched into orbit, but transporting them by rocket imposes hard limits. Rocket fairings can only hold objects of a certain size, and the intense force of launch restricts the shipment of delicate structures. That makes it hard to build systems stretching hundreds of metres or more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For years, Nasa funded a project called SpiderFab \u2013 a spider-like robot that would crawl through orbit, weaving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[607,2024,13559,3323,111,139,69,147,88541,203284,203283,203285,1430,203282],"class_list":{"0":"post-393422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-international-space-station","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-shenyang","17":"tag-shenyang-institute-of-automation","18":"tag-space-science-and-technology","19":"tag-spiderfab","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-us-entity-list"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}