The futuristic new system – dubbed SpiderFab – is being developed by a company called Tethers Unlimited.
The system uses arachnid-like droids to construct large objects in orbit around the Earth or further into the Solar System.
Tethers Unlimited CEO and chief scientist Dr. Robert Hoyt believes the SpiderFab system could be used to build radio antennas, spacecraft booms and solar arrays within the next decade.
But Dr. Hoyt also sees the robotic spiders helping humanity toward a long-term goal – sustaining mankind as it travels across the universe.
“Our really long-term objective for all of this work is to eventually enable the use of in-situ resources to construct the infrastructure in space needed to support humanity’s expansion throughout the solar system,” Dr. Hoyt claimed last month, during a presentation with NASA’s Future In-Space Operations (FISO) working group.