starsmithSPACE

Optically heatedmanufacturingin space.

We make high-temperature processes commercially viable in orbit and on the Moon.

Reach out Pitch deck

Sunlight.
Concentrated.

Space offers abundant sunlight and microgravity. We are exploring how to bring them together for crystal growth.

  1. 01 / Collect

    Capture sunlight with a solar concentrator.

  2. 02 / Focus

    Deliver concentrated heat to a crystal-growth process.

  3. 03 / Return

    Bring the crystals back to Earth through re-entry.

Reflector deployment in orbitA conceptual loop: a small payload with a stowed reflector coasts along its orbit above Earth, extends a boom, and unwinds the reflector from a spiral into a parabolic dish. The spacecraft turns toward the Sun and the dish focuses sunlight back onto the payload. It then turns dish-first and re-enters the atmosphere, the open reflector leading as a sail with the payload behind it. An artistic illustration, not a hardware design.

Packed small.
Opened wide.

Our concentrator technology is based on research by the Morphing Space Structures Lab (MSSL) at Stanford University. We plan to bring this research to industry as a deployable structure that makes our architecture scalable beyond 200 kW.

Morphing Space Structures Lab

Lunar soil.
Refined.

On the Moon, the same concentrator can turn sunlight into process heat for in situ resource utilization (ISRU): refining what is already there.

  1. 01 / Refine

    Silicon and metals from lunar regolith.

  2. 02 / Produce

    Materials made on site instead of launched from Earth.

  3. 03 / Build

    Structures on the surface from what is already there.

Areas we are exploring

Better materials.
New possibilities.

We host seed growth processes that our partners can grow further terrestrially, multiplying the advances and profits coming from microgravity quality.

Power semiconductors

Ga₂O₃ and AlN. Grown at 1,800 to 2,300 °C, where crucibles and seed size are the bottleneck.

Detector crystals

CdTe, CdZnTe and CdZnTeSe. Space Shuttle samples had 20 to 200 times fewer dislocations than ground controls.

Laser crystals

Ti:sapphire. On Earth, convection spreads dopants unevenly and caps usable crystal size.

Roadmap

How do we reform in-space manufacturing?

2028 Q1

Cubesat demo

Our first flight puts a deployable solar concentrator, a secondary mirror and radiators on a cubesat. A small part of the furnace runs in the loop, with a first melt as the target. At the end of the mission, the deployable doubles as a drag device to test accelerated de-orbiting.

2028 Q3

Microsat demo

A larger microsat carries a bigger deployable concentrator on a boom. It demonstrates furnace processes in orbit, with the first tiny crystals as the target, and burns up on re-entry at the end of its mission.

2029 Q1

First collaboration with re-entry

The second microsat repeats the process at a larger scale and brings the whole ship home. It re-enters under its open reflector, lands by parachute and is recovered with the first crystals grown in orbit.

2029+

Production in orbit

We host high-temperature processes for partners whose materials are limited by convection, crucible contact or available power: we supply the platform and the thermal environment, they bring the process. Containerless, diffusion-limited growth targets wide-bandgap substrates such as AlN and bulk GaN, and laser and nonlinear crystals whose value depends on dopant uniformity.

2031+

The lunar surface

At the south pole, sunlight is near-continuous and the Sun circles the horizon at nearly constant elevation, so a vertical collector turning around a fixed central furnace needs just one slow tracking axis. This way we can grow silicon and produce aluminum from regolith, which we aim to make the most power-efficient model for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).

2040

Part of the semiconductor supply chain

Weekly launches and re-entries: a fleet of small production craft circles Earth and returns crystals on a regular schedule. On the Moon, our plants make us part of the lunar economy, refining silicon and aluminum from regolith for building on site instead of launching them from Earth.

Let’s reform the semiconductor industry together.

We’re looking to connect with investors and technical partners.

Meet the team Reach out

Starsmith Space
San Francisco, California

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