Burns Flat, OK – The Oklahoma Infinity One Spaceport at Burns Flat has been selected as the operations site for a new series of commercial microgravity missions that could include as many as 100 flights over two years.
Astral Materials has selected Dawn Aerospace's Aurora spaceplane as a high-cadence test platform to accelerate development of furnace technology designed to manufacture advanced materials in microgravity.
Under the agreement, an initial campaign of Aurora microgravity flights will be conducted from the Burns Flat facility. The missions will allow Astral Materials to repeatedly test and refine its technology, with Aurora designed for turnaround times of approximately four hours.
Astral Materials is developing microgravity furnace hardware aimed at producing higher-quality semiconductor crystals and other advanced materials. Reducing the effects of gravity can limit convection and sedimentation during manufacturing, potentially producing crystals with fewer defects and greater consistency.
Those materials could eventually be used in photonics, quantum computing, advanced computing and high-power electronics.
"To realize our mission, we need engineering platforms that let us test often, learn quickly, and continuously improve our technology," Astral Materials CEO Dr. Jessica Frick said. "Aurora gives us a practical pathway to rapidly validate our manufacturing systems as we scale toward commercial production in orbit."
The Aurora spaceplane is designed to fly experiments into microgravity and return them to researchers shortly after landing. Astral officials say an experiment could be recovered in about 45 minutes, adjusted on the ground and potentially flown again later the same day.
Dawn Aerospace says Aurora can support up to 100 flights per vehicle annually. The frequent flights are intended to shorten development cycles that can take years when researchers rely exclusively on orbital laboratories.
The Burns Flat missions are not intended to replace longer-duration orbital research. Instead, Astral plans to use the Oklahoma flights to develop and mature its furnace systems before moving them into orbit.
Dawn Aerospace is developing its U.S. operational base at the Infinity One Oklahoma Spaceport in partnership with the State of Oklahoma.
Commercial flight operations from Burns Flat are currently planned to begin in 2028. The western Oklahoma facility is being developed to support frequent commercial suborbital flights and microgravity research, potentially making Burns Flat a significant U.S. testing location for companies developing next-generation space manufacturing technologies.
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