Jessica Frick hopes Building a furnace in space. Her company, California-based Astral Materials, designs machines that allow you to grow valuable orbital materials that can be used in medicines, semiconductors and more. Or, as she says, “We’re making boxes that make money in space.”
Scientists have long suggested that the microgravity environment in Earth’s orbit could enable the production of higher quality products than would be possible on Earth. The astronauts did an experiment crystal– Critical components of electronic circuits – as in 1973 at NASA’s Skylab space station. However, progress was slow. For decades, space manufacturing has been experimental rather than commercial.
It’s all set to change. Many new companies are taking advantage of the low cost of launching into space, coupled with new ways to bring things back to Earth and rekindle manufacturing within space. The sector is busy “at a large scale,” says Mike Curtis Loose, head of orbital service, assembly and manufacturing in UK-based research institution satellite applications. He said by 2035, “we expect the global space economy to become a multi-billion dollar industry, with space manufacturing within which is probably in an area of ​​around $100 billion.”
The simplest manufacturing of space refers to something made in space that can be used on Earth or space itself. Without gravity, almost severe and interesting physics allows for unique manufacturing processes that cannot be replicated on Earth.
One such process is the growth of crystals. Semiconductor manufacturing. On Earth, engineers take small, high-purity silicon seed crystals, dip them in molten silicon, and slice them into wafers to create larger crystals of high-quality silicon that can be used in electronics. However, the effects of gravity on the growth process can introduce impurities. “There are currently issues that silicon cannot solve,” says Joshua Western, CEO of Company Space Forge in the UK. “It’s basically not something you can get purely.”
Growing these crystals in space can lead to purer wafers, Western said:
Crystal growth applications are not only limited to semiconductors, but could lead to breakthroughs in high-quality pharmaceuticals and other materials science.
Other products made in space can be produced with similar advantages. In January, China announced that it was made A groundbreaking new metal alloy At the Tiangon Space Station, which is much lighter and stronger than comparable alloys on Earth. And the unique environment of low gravity can offer new possibilities in medical research. “If you stop gravity, you can make something like an organ,” says Mike Gold, president of Redwire’s citizens and international space business, who has been experimenting with space manufacturing at the International Space Station for many years. “If you try to do this on Earth, it’s going to be crushed.”
A key challenge in manufacturing within spaces is how to make production of scale viable, and how to actually bring space and products back to the earth. But it does exist on rockets like SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Dramatically reduced costs For access to the space, companies such as Space Forge and California company Varda Space Industries are developing Clueded Capsules. Return the material to the earth.
Varda has already flew two missions to demonstrate this ability and dropped the capsules down to land in the Utah Desert and the Australian Outback. In its first mission last year, the company grew to: An antiviral drug called ritonavir. Varda’s Chief Revenue Officer Eric Lasker says the market potential and health benefits for such products can be “pretty dramatic.” “It really helps people here,” he says.
Things could expand rapidly as orbital manufacturing capacity increases over the next few years. “I think the orbital manufacturing facilities look like space factories,” Lasker says. “You’ll see ready-made stations and vehicles. It’s not too difficult to see the future.”
Still, that’s the future. Today, space manufacturing remains “like a novelty,” Curtis Loose says, but “I think very quickly that within 10 years it will be considered business as normal.”
