
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in early 2026 plans to move two projects out of the lab and into space to demonstrate the manufacture of raw materials and assembly processes to construct “mass-efficient structures” on-orbit, the agency said on Monday. California Institute of Technology, teamed with Momentus Inc. [MNTS], and the Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, teamed with Voyager Space, will demonstrate their respective technologies under DARPA’s Novel Orbital and Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-efficient Design (NOM4D) program. Begun…