UK Government Project to Test ZBLAN Optical Fibre Cables Made in Spaaace

The UK Space Agency has today awarded contracts to three companies to investigate the possibility of producing advanced materials in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which includes one project (SkyYield) that aims to design a payload to process ZBLAN fluoride glass in microgravity (i.e. a specialist optical fibre that can transmit light with up to 100 times less signal loss than traditional silica fibre).

Space is a unique environment because the conditions – including microgravity, natural vacuum, and extreme temperatures – can be used to help to create products that are otherwise difficult, expensive, or impossible to manufacture on Earth.

For example, ZBLAN fluoride glass has been around for decades and is typically used in niche or highly specialised applications, such as inside medical devices, fibre lasers for broadband links and sensors etc. But on Earth, its performance is often limited by gravity-induced imperfections that occur during the construction process.

The government has thus committed £295,000 of public funding to help support OrbiSky‘s new ‘SkyYield‘ study, which will design a payload to process ZBLAN fluoride glass in microgravity. We understand this will take place aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and will aim to achieve the cable’s theoretical potential.

Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:

“By backing these innovative companies to explore manufacturing in orbit, we’re positioning the UK to capture new markets and bring tangible benefits back to Earth—from better medicines to more efficient electronics. These studies demonstrate the government’s ambition to drive forward one of the most exciting frontiers of space technology.”

Sylvester Kaczmarek, Chief Executive Officer at OrbiSky, said:

“SkyYield is about turning the unique conditions of microgravity into real-world capability. With UK Space Agency support, we’ll define a credible, end-to-end payload concept for manufacturing ultra-low-loss ZBLAN optical fibre in orbit, including the process controls and verification needed for commercial adoption.

This is an important step towards new UK-led markets in space manufacturing, with clear benefits for telecoms and medical imaging.”

Naturally, proving the idea is one thing, although it remains to be seen whether the high cost of actually getting everything up to space and then back down again harms the viability. But with this kind of cable, you don’t need to create massive drums of the stuff, although it certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing if you could. The other two contracts awarded today are as follows:

• BioOrbit Ltd (£250,000) – The ‘PHARM’ study will design an end-to-end mission to manufacture drugs in microgravity. Microgravity enables the formation of more perfect, reproducible protein crystals for drug formulations that cannot be achieved on Earth, enabling cancer treatments to be given at home. BioOrbit is working with relevant regulatory bodies to ensure that this mission can be readily commercialised.
• Space Forge Ltd (£300,000) – The ‘2Forge2Furious’ study will demonstrate how semiconductor seed crystals could be produced commercially in orbit, with the aim of improving the efficiency, reliability and power density of high-power electronic devices, including telecommunications, data centre infrastructure, EV charging and quantum computing.