FOMS (Fiber Optic Manufacturing in Space)

FOMS (Fiber Optics Manufacturing in Space) is a very small US startup founded in 2015.

Created: 2018-11-01

Updated: 2020-02-16

Company - FOMS (Fiber Optic Manufacturing in Space)

Founded
Country: 2015; USA

Website: FOMS

Service - SpaceFORM

Category: In-Space Manufacturing

Fields: ZBLAN

Status: Starting soon

First launch: 2019

They have received a total of $873 000 from NASA SBIR Phase I and II programs to develop Space Facility for Orbital Remote Manufacturing (SPACEFORM). Phase I was meant to increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from TRL3 to TRL5 and Phase II from TRL6 to TRL8. FOMS has also demonstrated fiber production on parabolic aircraft flights in 2014. In the end of 2017, FOMS expected to launch their payload capable of producting multiple kilometer of fiber by the end of 2018. It launched in 2019 and produced fiber. They also received an award from Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). FOMS holds a Trademark on SpaceFiber™. The NASA project funding was protested by Made In Space, which was dismissed.

Fiber Optic Manufacturing in Space (FOMS) Inc. presented the results Nov. 7 of its successful campaign to produce optical fiber on the International Space Station. FOMS “successfully completed the calibration of the manufacturing hardware and demonstrated the first optical fiber manufacturing on orbit,” FOMS Principal Investigator Dmitry Starodubov announced at the 6th Workshop on Specialty Optical Fiber and Their Applications in Charleston, South Carolina. “The microgravity fiber demonstrated better uniformity than the fiber produced on the ground. This unique achievement is providing the basis for government and commercial utilization of our revolutionary space manufacturing platform.” To produce optical fiber in orbit, FOMS created a suitcase size platform called Space Facility for Orbital Remote Manufacturing or SpaceFORM. FOMS sent two SpaceFORMs to ISS on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo resupply flight in April. Astronauts helped install the platforms. The experiments were then monitored and controlled remotely by FOMS from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The experiment was returned by a SpaceX Dragon in June. NASA accepted delivery of the first optical fiber produced on orbit by FOMS on August 26.