50cm beam output in space vacuum... Orbital Matter deploys solar panels

Orbital Matter has 3D-printed a rigid roughly 50cm beam and deployed a solar panel on a free-flying satellite in low Earth orbit, marking what its management calls the first time a structure was printed by a free-flying spacecraft exposed to the vacuum of space rather than inside a station. CEO and co-founder Jakub Stojek said the Replicator 2 mission is the first proof that solar panels can be manufactured in space at the size a mission requires. The 2022-founded startup has raised $3 million in seed funding and focuses on small satellites. The result matters because in-orbit manufacturing could let spacecraft build structures too large to launch folded, and the next step to watch is whether Orbital Matter scales the printing technique beyond a single beam and panel toward full mission-scale hardware.