Building Satellites in Space? Yeah, That's a Thing Now
Satellites are delicate things.
Built with sensitive circuitry, powered by crack-able solar panels, and swathed in paper-thin sheets of gold foil, satellites built on Earth must somehow survive launch stresses of multiple Gs without shaking apart as the rockets that carry them blast into orbit. But what if it were possible to avoid the stress of a rocket launch, and build satellites in space?
The first space company to figure that out will lead an emerging field of space-based industry, where satellites, spacecraft, and even entire space stations are constructed on-site in orbit, with no need to withstand Earth's gravitational forces -- much less the multi-G super-stress of a rocket launch.
Source Fool.com