Microgravity manufacturing

[high road]

With launch costs coming down, it's time to start thinking about the next step: commercial activities in LEO that fill those launchers with payload. One gating industry would be manufacturing stuff in space. These activities can start as small test platforms. Later on, they would require bigger and more permanent infrastructure as the demand grows. At that point, these activities themselves create the demand and pay for the infrastructure for other activities like (crewed) commercial space stations, on orbit refueling, etc.

I'd like this thread to serve as an overview of all the companies that are currently developing those activities, and to keep track of their progress. Especially those too small or low-key to merit their own threads. We've been discussing this subject every once and a while since I joined this forum. A few years ago, ideas were rather vague and theoretical. Today, we see more specific ideas and quite a lot of private investment. Albeit with a significant amount of seed funding from NASA:

www.parabolicarc.com/2020/04/10/nasa-selects-proposals-for-in-space-development-of-optical-fibers-stem-cells-and-more/

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/space-flight/4-products-that-make-sense-to-manufacture-in-orbit

https://techshot.com/success-3d-bioprinter-in-space-prints-with-human-heart-cells/

With the exception of 3D printed hearts (a male heart weighs about .345kg, artificial heart implants cost up to 66500€ in my country, and thousands of people are waiting for a heart transplant worldwide), none of these activities are viable as long as it costs 160 milion dollars to send 3000 kg worth of payload on a round trip to LEO. Even the 3D printed hearts would need a rideshare to pay for a Dragon V2. However, that price tag should hopefully be coming down soon.

I searched the forum for an existing thread, but I haven't found it. If it already exists, please point me to it.

[Asteroza]

Are you limiting this to earth returned products?

ZBLAN fiber manufacturing is currently the only product that appears on simple inspection to be profitable for an earth returning product.


If you aren't limiting to returned products, then a case can be made for

1. satellite manufacturing via delivered/assembled parts and materials
(spiderfab and archinaut)
(propellant depots might count if whole sats are delivered with empty tanks, to be initial fueled)

2. data from microgravity manufactured items
custom protein crystal creation/refining/analysis

3. bulk structural parts for platforms
truss manufacturing, such as by TUI's trusselator
other big structures via spiderfab and archinaut

[high road]

I don't exclude those. The reason I didn't mention them yet is that Made In Space has a separate thread and having it be 90% of the conversation here as well (given that they're the most visible company atm) would kind of defeat the purpose of this thread being an overview.

A second reason is that I was in the mindset of modelling a business case/plan for ZBLAN (and  by doing research, printed organs) for a space economy sim I'm working on as a passion project. Space based construction has completely different economics, and would be easier to model later on. Trying not to get sidetracked too much.

As for ZBLAN already passing the mark upon simple inspection: that does not hold up. Not yet anyway. Glass fiber is dirt cheap, and getting estimates how much of the cost of conventional glass fiber networks is due to the need for repeaters is hard to find. (Unless you can point me to some numbers or documents, I'd greatly appreciate that). You need a LOT of benefit to cover 53$/g worth of price gap. I'm still looking for more number for prices and demand for high-end fiber, but I don't consider that 'simple inspection'.

3D printed hearts have severe downsides if printed on the surface. The closest alternative product, an artificial heart, costs about 212$ per gram of 3D printed heart. And there's thousands of people waiting for a heart transplant. That's a massive oversimplification, but that's what 'simple inspection' is.

[TrevorMonty]

As for ZBLAN already passing the mark upon simple inspection: that does not hold up. Not yet anyway. Glass fiber is dirt cheap, and getting estimates how much of the cost of conventional glass fiber networks is due to the need for repeaters is hard to find. (Unless you can point me to some numbers or documents, I'd greatly appreciate that). You need a LOT of benefit to cover 53$/g worth of price gap. I'm still looking for more number for prices and demand for high-end fiber, but I don't consider that 'simple inspection'.

When comes to submarine cables, the housing, outer protective casing, repeaters and installation costs, make up majority of jobs costs compared to actual fibre.
I'm not sure how ZBLAN stacks up against current fibre in this market.

[Asteroza]

As for ZBLAN already passing the mark upon simple inspection: that does not hold up. Not yet anyway. Glass fiber is dirt cheap, and getting estimates how much of the cost of conventional glass fiber networks is due to the need for repeaters is hard to find. (Unless you can point me to some numbers or documents, I'd greatly appreciate that). You need a LOT of benefit to cover 53$/g worth of price gap. I'm still looking for more number for prices and demand for high-end fiber, but I don't consider that 'simple inspection'.

When comes to submarine cables, the housing, outer protective casing, repeaters and installation costs, make up majority of jobs costs compared to actual fibre.
I'm not sure how ZBLAN stacks up against current fibre in this market.

Cutting your repeater count in half for submarine cables due to doubling the distance from higher quality ZBLAN cables is a substantial cost savings. It's listed elsewhere on NSF, but doing a DragonLab flight to fly an ingot and make fiber and then return the spool works out even when selling ZBLAN at approximately 10% of current ZBLAN prices if the person who wrote that did their math correctly. The current issue is creating a telecom quality single long fiber of appropriate length in space. The basics for making the fiber has been demonstrated, but now making actual production equipment for a full length run is the next step.

[high road]

A few more examples to complete the overview of ideas actively being researched:

Printing complex satellite designs in space: Magna Parva
3D printing huge structures in space: spiderfab, archinaut
Printing eye retina's from stem cells (Lambdavision)
Producing the stem cells themselves: Cedar's sinai. I assume this is for research purposes or eventual vertical integration of organ printing in space. I don't see the business case close for bringing back the cells themselves.

ZBLAN: that's a list of companies bigger than everything else in this thread combined.

Here's the document with the current market prices per kg and per meter of fiber. Definitely makes sense as a rideshare. A dedicated Dragon mission would return between 9000 and 21000 km of fiber. That's enough to supply the ZBLAN market for years if I interpret the market size correctly. (Which I expect the early companies to do, to limit competition, drive down prices and increase the market size, and to have a robust supply chain).

https://sites.google.com/site/cmapproject/case-studies/exotic-glasses-and-fibers
https://www.factoriesinspace.com/zblan-and-exotic-fibers