The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has awarded contracts worth more than $1.1 million to three British companies to develop technologies for manufacturing products in microgravity, the agency said.<\/p>\n
The funding aims to accelerate research into producing advanced materials and medicines in space, where conditions such as microgravity and vacuum can yield higher-quality results than on Earth.<\/p>\n
Cardiff-based Space Forge received \u00a3300,000 ($410,000) to support efforts to manufacture novel semiconductor materials in orbit. London-based OrbiSky was awarded \u00a3295,000 ($404,000) for research into space-grown optical fibers, while BioOrbit, also based in London, received \u00a3250,000 ($342,000) to investigate pharmaceutical production in microgravity.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy backing these innovative companies to explore manufacturing in orbit, we\u2019re positioning the UK to capture new markets and bring tangible benefits back to Earth\u2014from better medicines, to more efficient electronics,\u201d UKSA Chief Executive Paul Bate said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Experiments conducted in microgravity have shown that crystalline materials can form larger, more uniform structures than those produced under Earth\u2019s gravity, improving performance in applications ranging from electronics to medicine. The near-perfect vacuum of space can also reduce impurities during crystal growth.<\/p>\n
Space Forge is pursuing semiconductor seed crystals that could offer improved thermal efficiency and computing performance. The company recently demonstrated a plasma-based process on an orbital test platform and plans to launch another satellite in 2027 to return manufactured materials to Earth.<\/p>\n
OrbiSky will design a payload to grow ZBLAN optical fibers \u2014 a type of heavy metal fluoride glass capable of transmitting light more efficiently than conventional silica fibers. Manufacturing ZBLAN on Earth has been challenging because gravity can cause structural defects during production. The company says space-produced versions could significantly improve telecommunications and medical imaging technologies.<\/p>\n
BioOrbit is developing an end-to-end mission concept to test pharmaceutical manufacturing in orbit. Researchers believe the superior crystalline quality achievable in space could enable the discovery of new drugs or improvements to existing therapies.<\/p>\n
Governments and private firms are increasingly investing in in-orbit manufacturing as part of a broader push to expand commercial activity in low Earth orbit beyond traditional satellite operations.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has awarded contracts worth more than $1.1 million to three British companies to develop technologies for manufacturing products in microgravity, the agency said. The funding aims to accelerate research into producing advanced materials and medicines in space, where conditions such as microgravity and vacuum can yield higher-quality results than on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6208,244,6209,5744,6210,6211,6212,6213,6214,6215,5739,6216,6217,1620,6218],"class_list":["post-20094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bioorbit","tag-europe","tag-in-orbit-manufacturing","tag-low-earth-orbit","tag-microgravity-research","tag-orbisky","tag-paul-bate","tag-semiconductors","tag-space-forge","tag-space-pharmaceuticals","tag-space-technology","tag-uk-space-agency","tag-uksa","tag-united-kingdom","tag-zblan-fiber"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}