Plasma breakthrough transforms Space from lab to factory
5 Jan 2026
British aerospace firm Space Forge is claiming a world first after producing a vital semiconductor ingredient on a commercial spacecraft.
The Cardiff company said it had successfully generated plasma – a core component for semiconductors and materials processing – aboard its ForgeStar-1 satellite.
While the International Space Station has on several occasions carried out plasma research in the last two decades, the latest announcement could represent a fundamental shift from space-based experimentation to industrial production.
ForgeStar-1 is a ‘free-flying’ craft operating more like an autonomous, self-contained and unmanned factory module rather than a manned station.
Unlike the ISS research projects, its work is designed to enable creation of a repeatable industrial process.
In a statement, Space Forge said the demonstration confirmed that the extreme conditions needed for gas-phase crystal growth – an essential building block of semiconductor production – could be created and controlled on an autonomous platform in low Earth orbit.
CEO and co-founder Joshua Western commented: “Generating plasma on orbit represents a fundamental shift, 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.”
Semiconductors such as gallium nitride, silicon carbide and diamond rely on plasma-based growth or surface processing to control defects and interfaces. On Earth, though, plasma production remains highly vulnerable to the effects of gravity and contamination.
By contrast, said Space Forge, space microgravity offers an absence of convection, ultra-high quality vacuum with near-zero nitrogen contamination and stable thermal conditions that “enable semiconductor crystals several orders of magnitude cleaner than those produced terrestrially”.
The company said its space-grown crystal seeds will be returned for industrial scaling at the Centre for Integrative Semiconductor Materials (CISM), based at the University of Swansea, with the aim of producing materials of a quality that is to date unachievable on Earth.
Pic: Space Forge
