A company started by «two blokes in a Cardiff garage» is about to launch a game-changing space factory that could start a new industrial revolution. Space Forge will ship its prototype manufacturing satellite in the coming weeks from an industrial park in the city to the US, where it will be sent into orbit on a SpaceX rocket.
Sky News was given exclusive access to the company’s dust-free ‘clean room’ to watch engineers carry out final checks. ForgeStar-1 is already loaded up with the raw ingredients to make a new generation of super-efficient semiconductor chips that would be impossible to produce on the planet’s surface. Joshua Western, the company’s co-founder, said: «This is the next industrial revolution but it’s in space, it’s not on Earth.»
Semiconductors are found in almost all electronic technology. They’re currently made from silicon crystals, but the material has a performance ceiling. However, in the microgravity and vacuum of space, it’s possible to make crystals from a new mix of chemical compounds that would allow computer chips to work faster while consuming less power. «We’re able to reduce the energy consumed where they get deployed by more than 50%,» Joshua said. «In the UK alone, we’re talking billions of pounds being saved in the energy bill alone. That’s in terms of consumer mobile data, but also data applications that are really (energy) hungry – artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and all the way down to people using ChatGPT at home.»
The prototype will test out the process of making the material, and it’s been given the first in-orbit advanced manufacturing license by the Civil Aviation Authority. If it works, the next mission will be for real, producing pure crystals that could be cloned back on Earth to meet huge demand. The company reckons such high-grade material for electronics could be worth up to £45m per kilogram, far outstripping the cost of launching on a rocket. But to safely bring such a precious cargo back to the planet, the company has had to design its own lightweight heat shield able to withstand high temperatures as it plunges through the atmosphere.
It’s called Pridwen, named after King Arthur’s shield, and it’s folded, origami-style, into a tiny space until it’s needed. Then it springs open like an umbrella to protect the satellite and slow it down so that it gently splashes down in the ocean, where it can be picked up. ForgeStar-1 is a pioneer.
The UK’s Satellite Applications Catapult, which supports space start-ups, says everything from stronger metal alloys to powerful cancer drugs could in the future be made in space. Nafeesa Dajda, chief of missions at the Catapult, said Britain is taking the lead. «We can communicate from pretty much anywhere on Earth using satellite technology,» she said. «There’s an opportunity now to think about how we use space in a different way and the unique environment that space provides us with, that microgravity environment, means we can do things we just can’t do on Earth. So how big could this be for the UK? Huge. We’ve estimated that the opportunity is worth around £20bn to the UK economy over the next 10 years.»
At Space Forge HQ, the team will be anxious to see their satellite leave for the US after years of development work. It’s a story that could have come straight from Silicon Valley. «It demonstrates what a couple of guys who started in a garage on the outskirts of the city when they got bored one night in the pub were actually able to do,» said Joshua. «There is an optimism with technology now (in the UK) that we didn’t always used to have. There is a new life in the industrial base, especially around engineering, and that’s despite all of the challenges that it has right now.»
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