Space Forge ForgeStar

ForgeStar is Space Forge's reusable satellite platform — a small spacecraft designed to manufacture advanced materials in the microgravity and high-vacuum environment of low Earth orbit and then return to Earth via controlled reentry and parachute landing. Target products include compound semiconductors (GaAs, InP, GaN) with fewer crystal defects than Earth-grown wafers, high-temperature superalloys with isotropic properties achievable only without gravity-driven convection, and pharmaceutical compounds. Space Forge (Cardiff, Wales) was founded in 2018 and raised Seraphim Space-led funding for ForgeStar development. The Cardiff-based company's thesis is that the specific material properties achievable only in microgravity are sufficiently high-value (compound semiconductors sell for $500+/wafer) to justify the per-kg cost of return-to-Earth microgravity manufacturing — complementary to Varda Space and Outpost Technologies in the in-space manufacturing sector.