Robotics, Servicing, and the Orbital Labor Force
The growth of the orbital economy is creating a labor problem: astronauts are scarce and expensive, while today’s specialized robotic systems can perform only a limited range of predetermined tasks. This panel examines the emerging robotic workforce for space—including free-flying and attached robots capable of inspection, station maintenance, cargo handling, satellite servicing, assembly, warehousing, and infrastructure support. Panelists will compare teleoperation, supervised autonomy, and fully autonomous operations, while addressing dexterous manipulation, rendezvous and proximity operations, interoperability, safety, verification, and the data required to train increasingly capable systems. The discussion will also explore how civil, commercial, and national-security customers can procure robotic services and how humans and machines will divide responsibilities as operations scale. The focus is not whether an orbital factory is commercially viable, but who—or what—will perform the work once sustained operations begin.
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