Orbital Matter, a Berlin-headquartered space startup, said its Replicator-2 satellite has 3D-printed a half-metre rigid beam in orbit, which the company’s executives described as a first for a free-flying spacecraft, TechCrunch reported on 3 November 2026. Earlier microgravity printing had been limited to the pressurised interior of the International Space Station.
The result is a step towards the company’s main commercial goal: building large solar arrays and other structures in orbit rather than folding them into a rocket and unfolding them with mechanical systems.
What Replicator-2 did in orbit
Replicator-2 launched in July on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Transporter-17 rideshare mission, according to the company’s launch announcement. The satellite is an 8U CubeSat of roughly 13 kg carrying four 1U printer modules. Each module extrudes a photopolymer resin and cures it with ultraviolet light into a rigid boom; the company said each was designed to produce a boom of one metre. Two booms were intended to deploy a scaled flexible solar array demonstrator, and the other two to deploy an antenna and a camera.
In August the company said one of the printers had extruded and cured resin into a solid structure in low Earth orbit, filmed by the printer’s own camera. According to TechCrunch, the satellite has since printed a half-metre beam from a custom plastic. One of the two printers meant to deploy the solar array suffered an anomaly and failed, but the boom it had already produced still deployed the array, the publication reported.
The length of a boom is limited only by the amount of resin carried on board, and the company says the same module can produce booms of more than 100 metres. In its launch statement, Jakub Stojek, chief executive and co-founder, said: “Replicator 2 is the first proof that we can simply build the array in space, at whatever size the mission demands.”
The company calls its product the printer-assisted deployment system (PADS), which TechCrunch said satellite builders are considering for extending solar panels, antennas and other components. One of the Replicator-2 printers builds a support boom for a VHF antenna mock-up designed by Thales Alenia Space, with which Orbital Matter is developing a deployable antenna product.
Founders, backers and funding
Orbital Matter was founded in 2022 by Jakub Stojek and chief technology officer Robert Ihnatisin, who previously worked at 3D printer maker Formlabs. The two met at Entrepreneur First in Berlin. The company is headquartered in Berlin, with its main office and research and development in Warsaw, Poland.
TechCrunch reported that the company has raised a $3m seed round. Orbital Matter’s investor page lists Entrepreneur First, Dhyan VC, Sunfish Partners and Earlygame Ventures as backers, and names the European Space Agency and Thales Alenia Space as partners. It did not disclose which investor led the seed round, the size of individual stakes or a valuation. In July the company also received €500,000 from the European Innovation Council’s Pre-Accelerator programme to turn its in-orbit demonstration into a commercial product. Orbital Matter says it is raising its next round but has not disclosed terms.
The company is aiming at demand for power from large satellite constellations and proposed data centres in orbit, which it says will need solar arrays in the tens of kilowatts. For comparison, TechCrunch noted that the solar arrays on SpaceX’s Starlink V2 Mini satellites are 20 metres long. The broader market is growing quickly: a World Economic Forum and McKinsey report estimated the space economy at $630bn in 2023 and projected it could reach $1.8tn by 2035.
What to watch next
Orbital Matter plans a demonstration mission in 2028 that will test a larger printer on a bigger satellite, with the aim of deploying a solar array that produces 5 kW, according to TechCrunch. The company described that mission as a step towards arrays of more than 100 kW per wing by 2030. Separately, it plans to build a full-scale functional antenna with Thales Alenia Space on the ground before deploying it on a follow-on mission. The next tests for the business are whether satellite builders sign up for PADS on paying missions, and the size and backers of its next funding round.
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