In-Orbit Assembly: DARPA's RSGS and the Coming Orbital Construction Industry

Twenty years of development. Two canceled contracts. A journey that will take ten months through the void to reach its destination. This summer, DARPA and Northrop Grumman plan to launch the first US robotic satellite servicing vehicle: a machine designed to do what has never been done in geosynchronous orbit, repair, refuel, and upgrade satellites that were never built to be touched.

The Machine They Built

The Mission Robotic Vehicle looks like no spacecraft that came before it. Two multi-axis robotic arms extend from a bus based on Northrop Grumman's proven Mission Extension Vehicle platform, the same design that docked with two live Intelsat satellites in 2020 and 2021. Those missions proved one thing: a servicer can rendezvous with a client satellite. RSGS must prove the next thing: a servicer can do useful work once it arrives.

The arms, developed by the Naval Research Laboratory over more than two decades, can perform on-orbit upgrades, inspections, anomaly resolution, and satellite relocation. They can even install new hardware modules on spacecraft never designed to receive them. The vehicle carries a Rendezvous and Proximity Operations suite with multiple cameras, sensors, and infrared imaging to approach client satellites safely without human guidance.

"The RSGS program is a government-private partnership for the next wave of satellite servicing," said James Shoemaker, RSGS Program Manager. "This upcoming demonstration is about proving the commercial viability of on-orbit servicing in GEO, creating a capability that will be available for both commercial industry and the U.S. government."

The RSGS program emerged from the Orbital Express mission in 2007, which first demonstrated autonomous satellite servicing in low Earth orbit. Nearly two decades later, the technology is finally mature enough for geosynchronous orbit: 36,000 kilometers above Earth, where signal latency rules out real-time human control.

The Industry Taking Shape Around It

RSGS is not the only bet on orbital construction. A generation of startups is building the tools for a future where large structures are assembled in space rather than folded into rocket fairings.

Rendezvous Robotics emerged from stealth in September 2025 with $3 million in pre-seed funding led by Aurelia Foundry and 8090 Industries. Its patented TESSERAE technology uses flat-packed modular tiles that autonomously assemble using electromagnetic formation flying. It was invented at MIT and has already flown two missions aboard the ISS. The company plans a fifth-generation demonstration in early 2026. Co-founder Joe Landon, a former Boeing and Lockheed Martin engineer, describes the vision: "If you want to change that arrangement or replace something or upgrade, you can just send a command."

GITAI, a Torrance-based space robotics firm, has raised $83 million in total funding including a recent $15.5 million round to develop its S2 robotic arm system for in-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing. The company aims to execute tasks autonomously in the vacuum of space.

Orbital Robotics, founded in late 2024 by veterans of Blue Origin, is taking a different approach. The Puyallup, Washington startup has raised $310,000 and is working with a stealthy space venture on an orbital rendezvous project for the US Space Force. CEO Aaron Borger told GeekWire the company is also exploring a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

Together, these companies represent the commercial layer that RSGS is designed to seed. The agency pays for the demonstration; the private sector builds the industry.

What happens to the orbital economy a year from now?