Space Forge rode hot out of 2025.
On the last day of the year, the in-space manufacturing startup said it successfully generated plasma aboard its ForgeStar-1 craft in LEO. The manufacturing furnace aboard the sat reached temperatures north of 1,000°C, which is essential for the orbital semiconductor manufacturing that the company is hoping to achieve.
“Generating plasma on orbit represents a fundamental shift,” Space Forge CEO Joshua Western said in a release. “It proves that the essential environment for advanced crystal growth can be achieved on a dedicated, commercial satellite—opening the door to a completely new manufacturing frontier.”
Building in space: Space Forge is part of the new generation of companies looking to leverage microgravity to produce purer materials that can be sold at a premium back on Earth. LEO’s vacuum environment and lack of strong gravity allows molecules to arrange themselves more easily and form more perfect structures—a benefit for products like pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.
In Space Forge’s case, the product in question is semiconductor materials.
- ForgeStar-1, its first satellite, is conducting plasma demonstrations and collecting data aiming to help future missions manufacture sellable materials.
- The company eventually plans to manufacture semiconductor crystals in orbit, with the expectation that crystals produced in microgravity can be up to 4,000 times purer than their Earth-manufactured counterparts.
- The company is interested in producing gallium nitride, silicon carbide, aluminium nitride, and diamonds—all essential materials for the tech industry.
The mission at hand: ForgeStar-1 is the first to produce plasma in LEO, the company says. That’s a check off the list of what’s possible. Space Forge will continue to crank up the heat on the spacecraft with the aim of better understanding plasma behavior in LEO, and to plan for missions to manufacture key materials for delivery back to Earth.
