SpaceFactory
Alabama-based ex-AI SpaceFactory: robotic regolith construction for the Moon, incl. LITHOS-1 surface-prep payload; won NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge.
SpaceFactory, formerly AI SpaceFactory, is a US company developing robotic construction and surface-preparation systems that turn native materials, particularly lunar regolith, into infrastructure. It was founded in February 2017 in New York by a team of architects and engineers and has since relocated its headquarters to north Alabama near Huntsville; its website lists 6629 US Highway 31, Ste C, Tanner, Alabama, and Innovate Alabama reports that operations run at the Alabama Robotics Technology Park while a future SpaceFactory Industry Hub is developed in Huntsville. Dave Malott is CEO. The company describes its current focus as agile, low-SWaP robotic systems with rugged autonomy for the lunar surface and for expeditionary defense environments, and it took part in the inaugural Defense Tech Accelerator at Huntsville's Cummings Research Park.
SpaceFactory's profile grew from NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge. Its Mars habitat design, MARSHA, placed second in the design phase, and in May 2019 the company won the challenge outright with a 15-foot-tall prototype printed from a basalt-fiber and biopolymer composite, receiving a $500,000 award; NASA commended the print for its high degree of autonomy. In 2020 it began TERA, a terrestrial analog dwelling printed from sustainable materials. From 2021 to 2023 it was one of 17 companies selected under NASA's Announcement of Collaboration Opportunity, partnering with Kennedy Space Center's Swamp Works to 3D-print a regolith-polymer feedstock in a vacuum chamber at temperatures as low as -200 C, emulating the lunar south pole. LINA, its lunar outpost concept, would be printed at a 60-degree angle onto a prepared regolith berm, with a mobile excavator following the print head to add a protective regolith overburden.
In 2024, under a NASA Phase I STTR with Michigan Technological University, SpaceFactory investigated mass regolith infrastructure containing only 0.5-2.0% non-regolith mass. A robotic apparatus laid and heated a regolith-biopolymer "lunar asphalt" in a dusty vacuum to build what the company calls the first lunar road made in a simulated space environment; a rover wheel then drove over it 900 times, covering 720 meters, with no dust accumulation, and the team's geogrids increased regolith structure strength more than 165-fold. Innovate Alabama reports a subsequent $850,000 NASA Phase II SBIR to develop a deployable lunar road from simulated Moon dust.
The company's lead flight concept is LITHOS-1, a near-term lunar technology-demonstration payload that the company calls a mechanized lithotroph ("stone-eater"). Its patent-pending mechanism excavates, compacts and processes regolith in a single pass without chemical or thermal inputs, removing electrostatically charged fines to leave a gravel-like, load-bearing, reduced-dust layer over a compacted sub-grade, an approach adapted from macadam paving. At about 5 kg and 20 W nominal power, it is sized for small commercial landers and rovers; its first full-system test campaign ran in a dusty vacuum chamber at Michigan Tech's Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab.
On Earth, SpaceFactory spun out ASTRA in January 2023, a full-stack robotic 3D printer built on an ABB IRB 6700 six-axis arm (245 kg payload, 3 m reach) with a pellet extrusion system, recycled White Matter and Re-matter materials and automated tool-path generation, and announced T200 "Starforge" gantry-style large-format printers.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
LITHOS-1 Lunar Payload
~5 kg, 20 W mechanized regolith-processing payload that excavates, compacts and removes fines in one pass to create load-bearing, low-dust lunar surfaces.
MARSHA Mars habitat prototype
Autonomously 3D-printed basalt-fiber/biopolymer Mars habitat prototype that won NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge in May 2019 ($500K prize).
Lunar road (mass regolith infrastructure) demonstrator
Robotic apparatus that laid regolith-biopolymer 'lunar asphalt' in dusty vacuum with Michigan Tech (NASA STTR); survived 900 rover-wheel passes over 720 m.
ASTRA robotic 3D printer
Terrestrial spin-out: robotic-arm pellet-extrusion 3D printer on an ABB IRB 6700 (245 kg, 3 m reach), 175-315 C print temperature, recycled feedstock.
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Contact SpaceFactory
WEBSITE
https://spacefactory.aiPHONE
+1 800-901-3952HEADQUARTERS
United States
Company Facts
Founded
2017
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
North America
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Grant / Non-profit
Funding Total
-
Keywords
