Out of this world: How Welsh firm Space Forge plans to take manufacturing off-planet

Sometime later this summer, the first ever fully Welsh-built satellite will take off aboard the first ever commercial launch from UK soil. Once in orbit, ForgeStar-0 will begin validation of its in-space manufacturing capability, technology that has the potential to disrupt everything from pharmaceuticals to semiconductors by harnessing the unique space environment. It’s a remarkable journey for a company still in its infancy.

“We’ve been working on the technology for about five years...but it’s only in the last two years that we’ve really gone for it,” Andrew Bacon, co-founder and chief designer at Space Forge, told The Engineer at the company’s Cardiff HQ.

Space Forge was actually incorporated in 2018, while both Bacon and co-founder/CEO Josh Western were still working at Thales Alenia Space across the Severn in Bristol. The pair had planned to quit their jobs in March 2020, just as the world was hit by the first devastating waves of Covid. Delayed but undeterred, Space Forge has made enormous strides in the intervening two years, evolving from a bare-bones startup operating out of a garage to a team of around 35 working in an industrial facility with its own recently commissioned clean room. In December 2021, the company secured £7.6m in seed funding, making it one of the fastest growing space startups in the world.