We are developing a reusable manufacturing satellite that uses the benefits of space to make new materials that are not possible on Earth.
Created: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2025-09-06
Company - Space Forge
Product/Service - ForgeStar, Aether
- Classification
- In-Space Manufacturing
- Category
- Microgravity Flight Service (LEO)
Microgravity Flight Service (Reusable Satellite)
In-Space Manufacturing
Transport Service (Re-Entry)
- Fields
- Reusable
Space Capsule
Orbital Microfabrication
- Status
- Development, Launched
- First launch
- 2025
We make super materials in space that cannot be made on Earth. Our vision is to harness the benefits of outer space to improve life on our planet, by producing new materials that can be used on Earth.
- "But we will be in orbit within 18 months certainly. "Some parts have arrived already and we’re setting up the clean room, which is almost ready for us to start assembling things – we can produce three ForgeStar Ones at a time in there.
- "By 2025 we want to be doing 12 missions to a year and by the end of the decade they'll probably be weekly. With that said we've probably already met our capacity here so we're in discussions with the Welsh Government about finding a new space for us."
Reuters: World’s first reusable satellite to offer in-space manufacturing.
Semiconductors
"Each mission is capable of producing more than a million [semi-conductor] chips per flight."
Microgravity as a service
Aether
- The next-generation prediction system.
- Precisely engineered tracking, capture and recovery.
- Designed for convenience, cost and customer satisfaction.
- Speedy return of your payload post mission"
ForgeStar-0
- The spacecraft will test the company’s proprietary re-entry shield, which during future operational missions would protect a satellite traveling through the searing heat of the atmosphere, targeting a landing ellipse of just hundreds of meters.
- While the exact technology is under wraps, Western says each shield has an “umbrella-like” deployment, unfurling upside down ahead of the spacecraft to start. Then, once through the thick atmosphere, the shield doubles as a parachute, slowing the spacecraft for a gentle touchdown.
- ForgeStar-0 will be purposefully oriented to burn up in the atmosphere, providing useful data points about how the shield copes with re-entry. But a true test will come possibly as early as next year, when the company launches its ForgeStar-1 satellite to demonstrate in-space production of semiconductors, which have a 10-to -100-time performance improvement over semiconductors made on Earth.
ForgeStar-1
- The microwave-sized ForgeStar-1 satellite contains a miniature, automated chemistry lab that will allow the team to remotely mix various chemical compounds and develop new semiconducting alloys once the satellite is in orbit.
- But rather than sending the materials back to the planet, ForgeStar-1 will beam the results of these experiments to scientists digitally as this satellite is not designed to return to Earth.
- Space Forge has confirmed the successful launch and in-orbit communication with ForgeStar®-1, the UK’s first in-space manufacturing satellite, developed entirely in Wales.
- ForgeStar-1 launched aboard the Transporter-14 rideshare mission from SpaceX’s facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- This first-of-its-kind in-orbit manufacturing demonstration is designed to prove the viability of producing advanced materials in the unique environment of space.
ForgeStar-2
US Office
The Cardiff, Wales-based startup focused on fabricating high-value materials in space is looking for a U.S. location for manufacturing ForgeStar satellites and payloads for U.S. customers.
- “We’ve had a lot of taps on the shoulder from both government and commercial players that are interested in our core capabilities,” Space Forge CEO Joshua Western told SpaceNews.
- Space Forge intends to manufacture semiconductors, alloys and biological materials in orbit.
- An upgraded version, ForgeStar-1A, is scheduled to launch later this year on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare flight. ForgeStar-1A will demonstrate Space Forge’s in-space manufacturing capability and gather safety data, Western said.
ForgeStar System
- As opposed to ablative heat shields, like those used on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which require replacement after each mission, Space Forge says it built its “Pridwen” heat shield to be large enough to radiate away the heat generated by atmospheric reentry. The shield, made out of a high-temperature alloy, was designed to fold inside the launcher for lift-off and unfold when the spacecraft makes its return to Earth.
- Moving away from ablative heat shields is one way Space Forge hopes to set itself apart from its competitors.
- The company has also developed an uncrewed water vehicle, “Fielder,” which will maneuver itself under ForgeStar and “catch” it in a soft landing. The idea is to reduce stress on sensitive payloads inside the vehicle as much as possible, while also reducing the need for spacecraft refurbishment.
- “The space station is a great laboratory, but it’s not a factory,” Bacon said. Nor is in-space manufacturing as simple as turning a Dragon capsule, the most-used cargo and crew vehicle in history, into an orbital factory. The capsule simply isn’t optimized for it — on cost or engineering, he explained.
- In addition to cost, the mechanics of Dragon’s reentry could pose problems for some materials, like live biological cultures. “We’ve spoken to biological customers who’ve lost their three-year in-development experiments in the last millisecond of landing,” due to the high-shock of landing, Bacon explained.
PECVD Tool Design
PECVD Tool Design: Results: Adaptations to tool required for semiconductor manufacturing. How are the key process parameters changed in LEO?
- Access to regular cadence of launch and return from orbit.
- As platform agnostic as possible.
- Easily adaptable to other CVD processes.
- Dimensions: 3U
- Mass: 4.5 kg
- Power Consumption: < 3W
Tool capable of firing up a plasma a fraction of the conventional power requirements of terrestrial tools.
News
Space Forge Secures £22.6M for In-Space Manufacturing Platform, 2025-05-14.
- Welsh in-space manufacturing company Space Forge has raised £22.6 million in a Series A funding round led by the NATO Innovation Fund.
- Space Forge explained in its 14 May update that the funding will be used to develop its upgraded ForgeStar-2 platform and to support its upcoming first in-orbit demonstration mission.
National Microgravity Research Centre
Status Comment
ForgeStar-0 was on a failed Virgin Orbit mission and did not make it to orbit. ForgeStar-1 launched in 2025 does not have re-entry capability. Waiting for future missions for in-scope "first launch" year.
Notes
- AAC Clyde Space has been commissioned by Space Forge to design a satellite platform that is to take advantage of the space environment for production in-orbit.
- Secured a £1.2 million project as part of The Open Networks Ecosystem Competition. To use revolutionary Space Forge materials in new energy-efficient ultra-wideband gap power amplifiers for massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, 2023.
- Net zero by 2050? The answer is up in space. Manufacturing materials outside the Earth’s atmosphere could be the key to achieving the UK’s climate goals, Joshua Western, 2023-10-06.
- Space Forge and Voyager Space Partner to Advance In-Space Manufacturing Capabilities, 2024-10-29.
- The UK has awarded aerospace startup Space Forge 499,000 pounds ($611,000) to build the world’s first manufacturing platform in space to create crucial components of defense capabilities, 2023-11-09.
- Space Forge presentation at ISSRDC 2024.
- Sierra Space signed memoranda of understanding with Astral Materials and Space Forge, to examine the use of Sierra Space’s technology for semiconductor development in space. 2024-12-04. Space Forge, under its separate agreement with Sierra Space, will work on technologies and “proof-of-concept missions” for semiconductor production in space. That also includes potential cooperation on how to incorporate semiconductor manufacturing into Sierra Space’s space station systems.
- Space Forge Secures UK License for ISAM Flight, 2025-03-18.
- Space Forge sees LEO as key to strengthening US chip independence, 2025-04-10.
- Space Forge Secures £22.6M for In-Space Manufacturing Platform, 2025-05-14.
- Factories in space, ET, and a space paraglider, 2025-05-29.
- Growing crystals in space,, 2025-07-01.
Sources
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News, Research, Projects and Patents
| Title | Type | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| What goes up … | Article | 2022-08-01 | > In-space manufacturing is reaching a crucial point. Dozens of companies are now developing technologies to make use of the microgravity environment to beat the efficiency and quality of goods and materials made on Earth. The question has been how to bring products home safely in sufficient quantities. Jonathan O’Callaghan tells the story of two startups vying to show the way. |
| Manufacturing in space: Space Forge’s incredible plans to make next-gen super materials beyond the Kármán line | News | 2022-02-11 | |
| Space Forge: orbiting factory will make products that are out of this world | News | 2021-10-01 | > An autonomous space factory that harnesses the lack of gravity to create high-performance products impossible to produce on Earth is under development with British government funding. |
| Towards a carbon negative future: How Space Forge plans to utilize in-orbit manufacturing and microgravity for the clean industrial revolution | Article | 2021-03-04 |