The on-orbit manufacturing technology has wide applications in the field of deep space exploration that significant efforts have been dedicated to developing it by the space powers. The on-orbit manufacturing of non-metallic materials has been achieved, while it is still challenging to manufacture the indispensable metallic structures in space. This paper introduces the developing status of the on-orbit manufacturing technologies, and focuses on the research path of the on-orbit manufacturing technologies for metallic materials in Europe and the United States. The difficulties faced by the development of the on-orbit manufacturing technologies for the metallic materials are analyzed. To overcome the difficulties, we propose to study the on-orbit manufacturing based on metallic glasses with thermoplastic feature, and introduce several manufacturing methods for metallic glasses that is promising for the application in on-orbit manufacturing. To achieve the on-orbit manufacturing of metallic glasses, the future directions of the research on the manufacturing of metallic glasses are discussed.