Microgravity environment improves the quality of specialty optical fibers with the promise of up to 100x reduction in insertion loss. The suppression of crystallization and phase separation in microgravity environment have been already experimentally confirmed. Fiber optic manufacturing on a low earth orbit platform could be a surprisingly affordable manufacturing approach due to low mass and high value of optical fiber products. FOMS Inc. has developed a facility-class instrument for fiber fabrication in space environment.

Our equipment offers the following set of capabilities for fiber production in space:

• Production capacity up to 50km per mission in a small and cost-effective form factor
• Multiple doped and undoped fibers fabrication option in a single payload
• Processing temperature range exceeding 1000°C that covers most of known glasses
• Gravity immune manufacturing hardware for best fiber in any orientation or gravity
• Intuitive software interface with option of automatic optimization of the fiber quality