In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) State of Play - 2025 Edition

The future of spaceflight will yield increasingly more ambitious missions to support civil, national security,
and commercial space sectors. Achieving some of these missions will not be feasible by launching an
integrated, fully functioning system on a single launch vehicle. Future science and human exploration
missions will require payloads that are larger than any foreseeable launch vehicle fairing, national security
missions will require persistent assets that are mobile and resilient, and commercial space missions will
require cost-effective ways to update to the latest technology on orbit.

In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) can vastly expand the performance, availability,
and lifetime of space systems compared to the traditional paradigm of launching an asset with no intent
to ever interact with it again. ISAM capabilities foster an ecosystem that changes the space operations
paradigm, creating the foundation for sustainable exploration and serving as a multiplier for other
capabilities like space logistics, power generation, and reusability.

Previous achievements in ISAM have enabled ambitious human and robotic space missions. The
assembly, operation, and maintenance of NASA’s International Space Station (ISS); servicing missions to
the Hubble Space Telescope (HST); and Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV)
demonstrate the dramatic operational missions that can be achieved using ISAM capabilities. Many
current and upcoming flight demonstrations are advancing areas that will enable the next generation of
civil, national security, and commercial space missions.

This document describes the current state of ISAM missions, activities, and technologiesto the best ability
of the authors. Compiling and organizing the available ISAM capabilities will help mission designers
incorporate ISAM technologies into their concepts, create the starting point for technology development
plans and roadmaps, and provide technologists a survey of the field they are developing. This document
divides the ISAM capabilities into 11 functional capability areas that describe the functions or activities
that can be performed in space using ISAM.