Astral Materials Secures Microgravity Campaign with Dawn Aerospace to Advance Next-Generation Materials and Semiconductor Manufacturing
Updated: 1 day ago
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand— September 1, 2026 — Astral Materials has selected Dawn Aerospace's Aurora spaceplane as a high-cadence testbed to accelerate development of its microgravity furnace hardware for next-generation materials manufacturing. By reducing gravity-driven effects such as convection and sedimentation, microgravity can enable semiconductor crystals grown with fewer defects and greater consistency. Potential applications for these improved semiconductor crystals and other advanced materials include photonics, quantum computing, advanced computing and high-power electronics.
The agreement includes an initial campaign of Aurora microgravity flight missions, to be conducted at the Oklahoma Infinity One Spaceport operations site, with up to 100 flights over two years, providing a rapid iteration pathway as Astral develops its microgravity manufacturing technology. With a four-hour turnaround time, Aurora gives Astral Materials the opportunity to test and refine its technology multiple times within a single day.
The missions will fly from Dawn Aerospace's U.S. commercial operations facilities where Dawn is scaling up its services for high-cadence microgravity research for the American industry. Astral Materials joins a growing group of organizations—including Johns Hopkins APL—using Aurora to accelerate space technology development.
"At Astral, we believe using microgravity as a manufacturing tool will define humanity’s next age.”, said Dr. Jessica Frick, CEO of Astral Materials. "To realize our mission, we need engineering platforms that let us test often, learn quickly, and continuously improve our technology. Aurora gives us a practical pathway to rapidly validate our manufacturing systems as we scale toward commercial production in orbit where longer duration microgravity can be unlocked."
"Every major industrial revolution has depended on engineers being able to experiment quickly,” said Stefan Powell, CEO of Dawn Aerospace. "Microgravity manufacturing will be no different. If microgravity manufacturing is to become an industry rather than a scientific curiosity, engineers will need to iterate in microgravity as routinely as they do on Earth. Astral recognizes that frequent, repeatable suborbital flights can fundamentally change how space hardware is developed, and this agreement is an important step toward making that future possible."
Rather than replacing orbital research, Astral is leveraging Aurora’s complementary capabilities to rapidly mature their furnace technologies before they progress to long-duration missions in orbit.
"We can test an idea, recover it in around 45 minutes, make an adjustment on the ground and test it again later that same day," said Jiya Janowitz, CTO of Astral Materials. "That kind of rapid iteration has never existed for microgravity manufacturing, and it fundamentally changes how quickly we can develop our technology."
Aurora, with an operational cadence of up to 100 flights per vehicle annually, enables teams to fly experiments, recover them within minutes of landing, analyze the results and quickly prepare for the next microgravity flight. This dramatically shortens development cycles, allowing researchers and engineers to iterate hardware in days and weeks as per traditional terrestrial laboratories, rather than multi-year cycles for orbital labs.
Commercial flight operations from Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport are planned to commence in 2028, where the company is building its U.S. operational base in partnership with the State of Oklahoma. The site is designed to support high-cadence commercial suborbital flights, giving companies like Astral Materials routine access to the rapid testing needed to accelerate microgravity manufacturing, pursuing what many believe could become one of the defining industrial capabilities of the space age.
For mission profiles, vehicle specifications, and flight data, visit
About Dawn Aerospace
Dawn Aerospace is a space transportation company developing technologies that enable more frequent access to space and greater mobility once there.
Its flagship Aurora spaceplane is designed to provide twice-daily access to suborbital space, combining aircraft-like operations and a four-hour turnaround with speeds of up to Mach 3.7, altitudes of 100 kilometers, and up to 127 seconds of microgravity. The company also develops in-space mobility technologies, including propulsion systems flown aboard more than 50 satellites and on-orbit refueling technologies.
Founded in 2017, Dawn employs more than 130 people across the Netherlands, France, New Zealand, and the United States. Dawn is establishing its first U.S. operational facilities for Aurora suborbital missions at Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport, with operations scheduled to begin in 2027.
About Astral Materials
Astral Materials is catalyzing humanity's next material age — where microgravity is used as a tool to advance Earth's existing technologies and enable those that have yet to be imagined.
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