International Journal of Science, Engineering and TechnologyAuthors: Samvruth Chamarthi
Abstract: This paper investigates whether the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit provides commercially exploitable manufacturing advantages over terrestrial processes for three high-value material systems: protein crystal growth for pharmaceutical drug discovery, ZBLAN heavy-metal fluoride glass optical fibre, and pharmaceutical polymorph engineering. The study synthesises four decades of peer-reviewed experimental literature alongside verified pricing and mission data from the 2024 commercial milestones achieved by Varda Space Industries and Flawless Photonics. The principal finding is that the suppression of buoyancy-driven convection and gravitational sedimentation in orbit produces measurably superior crystal quality and fibre microstructure for the processes examined, and that this advantage already satisfies the commercial viability condition at current Falcon 9 launch economics for pharmaceutical biologics and specialty ZBLAN photonic fibre.
