Space Forge has opened of a new office in Portugal, on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, thereby establishing a satellite return location in mainland Europe and marking the start of the company’s wider European expansion.
This expansion follows the company’s record-breaking £22.6 million ($30 million) Series A round—the largest Series A secured by a UK space tech company—backed by the NATO Innovation Fund, World Fund, NSSIF and the British Business Bank. This also signals Space Forge’s ambitions to scale up European operations in alignment with its vision for a clean industrial revolution powered by in-space manufacturing.
The new location supports the development of a scalable return infrastructure across the continent and will be central to the company’s ambitions to make space a viable platform for industrial-scale manufacturing of advanced materials. Its location in the Azores—whose geographic positioning makes them an ideal return location for LEO missions—creates new opportunities for high-frequency satellite return operations and regional partnerships.
Space Forge will work in partnership with the Azores’ regional government to bring its Portuguese facilities online, the first step in broader plans that include R&D into future platform architectures and the development of one (or multiple) European manufacturing sites for next-generation semiconductors using seed crystals forged in space.
This move builds on Space Forge’s growing global momentum, with the ForgeStar®-1 integration already complete in the U.S. and the next-gen ForgeStar®-2 in active development. The company’s first on-orbit demonstration mission—The Forge Awakens—is slated for launch during 2025.