Space Forge, a Welsh startup focused on orbital manufacturing, recently announced major breakthroughs in developing advanced semiconductor materials. In December, the company successfully operated an orbital furnace on its ForgeStar-1 satellite. This furnace created a constant flow of super-hot plasma, making it possible to produce near-ideal semiconductor crystals that would be extremely useful in space. This manufacturing breakthrough represents a game-changing advancement in the development of high-performance power devices that will revolutionize the automotive and energy industries among many others.
Forgestar-1 satellite making seed crystals. These crystals serve as substrates for gallium and aluminum nitride or silicon carbide. These materials are key to making electronic devices more energy efficient. Joshua Western, co-founder and CEO of Space Forge, called the activation a historic moment for orbital manufacturing. He stressed that if we could produce space materials, we would realize enormous profit.
The Mechanics of Orbital Manufacturing
The orbital furnace works under special circumstances that are very different from Earth. Western explained that in a vacuum chamber on Earth, elevated nitrogen concentrations can exacerbate growth limiting processes. He ruins the fun by explaining that if you’re worried about nitrogen contaminating your growth to maturity process, it may only go up to 10^-11 in a vacuum chamber on Earth. In space, above 500 kilometers altitude, it’s naturally occurring at 10 to the -22. This tremendous decrease in interference enables better quality crystals to be made.
Space Forge’s goal is to prove that it is possible to develop and maintain a manufacturing environment for growing superconductor crystals. ForgeStar-1 will deploy an innovative heat shield when performing its eventual de-orbit maneuver later this year. After this mission, Space Forge intends to return its first batch of space-grown crystals to earth. They anticipate the figure will be small—maxing out at only a few kilos.
The firm expects to have a follow-on mission next year to continue demonstrating the promise of in-orbit manufacturing. The market for these technologies is projected to reach $28.19 billion by 2034. This manufacturing rebound represents the broader trends of growing interest and investment in new space manufacturing capabilities.
Challenges and Opportunities in Space Manufacturing
Though the potential for space-grown materials is promising, hurdles still exist. Sending things up to orbit is extremely expensive. Take SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets – they’re currently priced at about $1,500 per kilogram to orbit. International Space Station (ISS) produced materials are returned to Earth aboard SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon capsule. The creative reuse of these materials has a much greater demand than supply.
Still, experts understand there’s huge potential and a lot of room to grow in this new frontier for technology. Anne Wilson, an industry expert, expressed skepticism about the practicality of microgravity for bulk material production but acknowledged that “niche materials for specific applications might be worth the investment.“
S. Steve Putna, the director of the Texas A&M Semiconductor Institute, praised the benefits of space-grown crystals. He explained that these crystals have realized literally orders of magnitude higher electron mobility. This unique feature allows for 20-40% higher switching efficiency, which helps to make them especially useful for next-generation electronics that are more power-conscious.
The Future of Advanced Electronics
Space Forge was founded in 2018. As originally envisioned by the founders, new materials developed in space would enable new ultra-efficient electronics, as well as ultrafast optical networks. Western emphasized the potential energy savings that could result from these advancements: “There is potential for significant energy savings, perhaps as much as 50 percent within large infrastructure installations such as [5G] towers.”
Substrates grown in space could additionally revolutionize high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI). Putna explained the strides these substrates could make in improving technology. If they could double the yield of a $10,000 high-end AI processor from 50 percent to 90 percent, or allow quantum computers to function at room temperature rather than just above absolute zero, the launch costs would be trivial relative to the overall value created.
Challenges involving degradation over time and growth generations still pose a risk. “There will be a level of degradation over time and over generations of growth,” Western cautioned.
Matt Francis, another expert in semiconductor technologies, mentioned that while the costs of producing wafers have decreased significantly—”while I remember paying $20k a wafer in the early days, we are down in the hundreds of dollars range in volume markets like power”—the economics of sending materials into space must be carefully weighed against these advancements.