The quest to create semiconductors in space has taken a major step forward
Space Forge plans to produce semiconductors from space without human intervention
Narumon Bowonkitwishai via gettty imagesages
Space Forge intends to produce semiconductors in space, people are not needed. And on Wednesday, a British aerospace startup announced that it has taken an important step toward this goal by creating plasma, or superheated gas, for the first time on board a commercial satellite.
Semiconductors require extremely precise manufacturing conditions, and both NASA and industry groups argue that space microgravity is better suited for their production than Earth's. The reasons vary, but part of it has to do with how silicon behaves in such an environment—it's simply easier to get the material to stick to the structure needed to make a semiconductor.
Indeed, Space Forge's feat builds on previous work done on the International Space Station, says Clayton Swope, deputy director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
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“The key difference here is that this was done without a crew, without people, on a completely commercial spacecraft,” he says. “This demonstration shows that manufacturing semiconductor chips can only be done in space using machines.”
“Keeping people alive in space is expensive,” adds Swope. “If machines can do the job instead, it will reduce the cost of production in space.”
Space Forge CEO Joshua Western stated in the press release that the company's work proves that the environment is suitable for semiconductor production “can be achieved on a dedicated commercial satellite, opening the door to an entirely new manufacturing frontier.” Space Forge launched his satelliteForgeStar-1, in June. Its microwave-sized plant features an oven that the company has shown reaches temperatures of about 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius).
Other companies and research groups are joining the budding space industry. In 2024, another startup, Varda Space Industries, demonstrated the ability to grow crystals of the antiviral drug ritonavir on an unmanned commercial spacecraft and return them to Earth. And researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich recently Human tissue 3D printed in microgravity.
Space manufacturing is in its “first stage,” says Libby Jackson, head of space at the Science Museum in England. told the BBC. But testing and validating technologies like Space Forge's “really opens the door to an economically viable product where things can be manufactured in space and brought back to Earth to benefit everyone on Earth.”
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