Category: Space and Robotics
Robot Makers Face an Aluminum Bottleneck as Global Fleet Hits 5 Million
Five million industrial robots are now working in factories around the world. That’s a record, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). In a press release issued September 30, MES Inc., a privately held sourcing and supply chain firm in Ohio, argued that the next limit on growth won’t be software. It will be…
JA Solar Tests Silicon Solar Modules in Orbit for the First Time
JA Solar Technology (SZSE: 002459) said its P-type heterojunction, or P-HJT, solar modules launched aboard a Kuaizhou-11 rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on September 17 and reached their planned orbit. It is the company’s first attempt to fly this specific module design in space, and JA frames it carefully: a validation exercise, not…
First Hydrogen Signs Deal for 60% Stake in Robotics Company
First Hydrogen Corp. (TSXV: FHYD) (OTC Pink: FHYDF) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 60% interest in Exodus Actuation Solutions Inc., gaining access to a portfolio of robotics-related patents and intellectual property. Under the September 9 agreement, First Hydrogen will issue two million common shares in stages and provide US$2 million in staged…
NASA’s Roman Telescope Launches With BAE Systems Instrument
BAE Systems (LON: BA) announced in a press release on August 30 that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center, carrying an instrument structure the company designed, built, and tested. BAE Systems developed the Opto-Mechanical Assembly for Roman’s Wide Field Instrument (WFI), the telescope’s primary scientific instrument, providing the stable…
Space-Based Solar Power: Beaming Clean Energy From Orbit
Solar panels in orbit never experience nighttime, weather, or atmospheric absorption — conditions that fundamentally limit terrestrial solar power generation. Space-based solar power, an idea first proposed decades ago but historically dismissed as economically implausible given the cost of space access, is being seriously reconsidered as falling launch costs and advances in wireless power transmission…
Space Traffic Management: Solving the Growing Problem of Orbital Debris
Low Earth orbit is becoming crowded. The same cost reductions that have enabled the commercial space boom discussed throughout this publication have also produced an unintended consequence: a rapidly growing population of satellites and debris that is straining the industry’s ability to track objects, avoid collisions, and ensure the long-term usability of orbital space. Space…
MDA Space Launches First Satellites as Prime Contractor
MDA Space Ltd. (TSX: MDA) (NYSE: MDA) confirmed in a press release on August 16 that it successfully launched the first eight of 17 replenishment satellites it is building for Globalstar Inc. (NASDAQ: GSAT), extending the life of Globalstar’s existing low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite network. The launch itself is routine in one sense, satellites…
Surgical and Medical Robotics: How Precision Machines Are Transforming Healthcare
Robotics has quietly become one of the most consequential technologies in modern medicine. From robotic-assisted surgical systems that extend a surgeon’s precision beyond human physical limits to autonomous mobile robots handling hospital logistics, medical robotics is expanding well beyond the operating room. The sector combines the technical demands of precision robotics with the regulatory rigor…
Can AI Optimize Underwater Sensing? Nauticus and Strangeworks Explore
Nauticus Robotics, Inc. (NASDAQ: KITT) announced in a press release on August 4 that it has entered a collaboration with Strangeworks, a privately held compute optimization company, to explore how artificial intelligence and quantum-inspired computing could improve the way underwater fiber-optic sensing networks are planned and deployed. The announcement is explicitly exploratory: there is no…