It’s the day after Donald Trump declared his election victory, and a NATO technology specialist is looking at a miniature factory the size of a shoebox designed to produce semiconductors in space.
Chris O’Connor, in his black bomber jacket and military hairstyle, has spent the last year scouring Europe for companies that will give NATO a technological advantage over Russia and China – a task that has become even more urgent in the last 36 hours as the region rushes to prepare for Trump 2.0. Here, on a gray industrial estate on the outskirts of Cardiff, Wales, he believes he has found it.
Space Forge wants to send satellites into space equipped with compact, tidy rooms where they will grow semiconductor crystals before safely transporting them back to Earth.
One Space Forge satellite could eventually produce enough semiconductor material to power tens of thousands of phones, chief technology officer Andrew Bacon estimates, speaking in an office crowded with newly hired staff. Bacon says he’s more interested in producing electric car chargers to combat climate change and Space Forge’s potential to exorcise all polluting industries from the planet.
But O’Connor is here because Space Forge has attracted interest from the €1 billion ($1 billion) NATO Innovation Fund (NIF). Manufacturing semiconductors in space, where there is no dirt, air or gravity, could provide the performance needed to create better versions of military tools such as radar.
“The distance that a radar can travel – which translates into what it sees and how quickly it sees it – can be dramatically improved by using these materials,” says O’Connor, explaining why Space Forge was among the first six NIF investments to make were to be implemented and made public.
In addition to Space Forge, the annual NIF’s investments include battlefield robots, a company that produces a lighter version of carbon fiber used to build cars and rockets, and several space startups.
This is the alliance’s first foray into the world of venture and venture capital, where its members’ money is used to finance an experiment. Space Forge has never actually manufactured semiconductor materials in space. The only time the company tried to launch its satellites, the Virgin Orbit rocket that flew them failed at 177 km above Earth and crashed into the ocean. O’Connor, one of the fund’s three partners, is hopeful that there is no guarantee the investment will succeed. “We were given a mandate to take this risk,” he says.