Materials · December 2025

First commercial furnace in orbit

A free-flying satellite lights a 1,000 °C furnace to make crystals in space.

Space Forge's ForgeStar-1 ignited a plasma furnace at about 1,000 °C in low Earth orbit, the first free-flying commercial tool for semiconductor crystal growth in microgravity.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia Source

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Reusable orbital rocket 2015

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Payloads in low Earth orbit Latest: 14.5k objects (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data