Program 01 · FORGE
All programsFORGE
Fabrication, Origination, Refinement, Grade Engineering
Manufacturing & Flight Qualification
FORGE is the manufacturing and flight qualification foundation of the stack: precision components for space, defense, and aviation programs, precision optics, vacuum EO/IR qualification, COTS-to-flight, and satellite systems manufacturing on the ground in Colorado, with the documentation discipline federal customers audit against.
Lead program. First revenue: ground operations from Colorado, 2027.
Constanellis builds five programs from the ground outward: FORGE and NEXUS on the ground, HERMES and WIRES in orbit, ATLAS on the lunar surface. FORGE is the ground stage of that sequence.
Defense programs wait longest for the smallest hardware.
Precision optics and qualified components sit on the critical path of programs a thousand times their size. The suppliers who make them are few, backlogged, and rarely set up for the test and documentation burden defense customers carry. FORGE exists to be the supplier we could not find: precision components for space and defense, qualified in-house, delivered with the paperwork already right.
The gap is measurable, and the measurement is published. ESA's 2026 space-economy report counts 219 defense satellites launched in 2025, nearly five times the 2020 figure, and estimates that China accounted for 62 percent of the world's defense-related launch and manufacturing value that year against 18 percent for the United States. Every one of those spacecraft is built from components somebody has to qualify. FORGE is built to move that arithmetic, on American soil.
Precision Optics
Retroreflectors and laser retroreflector arrays (LRAs): settled physics, unforgiving tolerances. Landers bound for the lunar surface carry an array so they can be ranged from orbit, eight fused-silica corner cubes that have to hold their wavefront under vacuum and lunar temperature. Optical design, assembly support, metrology, and acceptance documentation for hardware that has to perform exactly as modeled; the acceptance measurement is the one CTM-2026-01 defines.
Vacuum EO/IR Qualification
Thermal-vacuum test of electro-optical and infrared hardware: performance verified in the environment the hardware will actually see, with the data package to prove it.
COTS-to-Flight Cycles
Commercial components screened, qualified, and documented for flight use. The fastest honest path from a catalog part to a part you can put on a mission.
Flight hardware is a paperwork problem too.
Process specifications and audit documentation available on request.
The catalog · 14 lines, 13 quoting today
What FORGE sells, line by line.
Each line with what you receive, how it is bought, and the stage it is actually at. No prices: the number is quoted against your requirement.
| Line | What you receive | Unit of sale | Status | Earliest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F-01Thermal vacuum qualification campaign | Test report, raw telemetry, chamber log, thermocouple map and the article returned with its record | Per campaign, priced by chamber hours and cycles | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-02Thermal cycling to a stated specification | Cycle count, dwell and ramp record against the specification, with excursions logged | Per campaign, priced by cycles and range | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-03Vibration, shock and acoustic qualification | Signature before and after, resonance survey, notching record | Per campaign, priced by axis and level | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-04Combined environment test, thermal vacuum with optical measurement | Optical performance measured while the article is at temperature and pressure, not before and after | Per campaign | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-05Optical performance characterisation under vacuum at temperature | Wavefront, throughput and pointing measured in the environment the optic will work in, with the measurement chain documented | Per article, priced by aperture and temperature range | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-06Sensor characterisation under representative illumination | Behaviour of an optical sensor at low sun angle, high contrast and long shadow, which is where the bench and the surface diverge | Per sensor, per illumination case | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-07Traceable calibration and measurement system analysis | Calibration certificate with an unbroken traceability chain, plus gauge repeatability and reproducibility | Per instrument, annual recall | Quoting today | First 12 months |
| F-08Contamination control and transit bakeout | Outgassing record, witness plate results, cleanliness level certified at handover | Per article or per shipset | Quoting today | On facility |
| F-09Payload interface verification and post integration optical check | Interface conformance evidence, alignment record and an optical check after integration rather than before it | Per integration, priced per interface | Quoting today | Immediate |
| F-10Additive part qualification programme | Coupon results, machine installation qualification, witness articles and the parameter set locked to the result | Per material and machine combination | Quoting today | Year 1 to 2 |
| F-11Batch qualification for a material and machine combination | One qualification that covers a bracketed parameter range instead of requalifying on every small change | Per batch definition | In development | Year 2 |
| F-12Precision optical components | The component, plus its instrumented record | Per part | Quoting today | Year 1 to 2 |
| F-13Precision machined components | The component, plus its instrumented record | Per part | Quoting today | Year 1 |
| F-14Per part instrumented record | Material of record, machine of record, operator, measurement chain, raw data and a hash, delivered with the article and retained | Included with every article, licensed separately for third party parts | Quoting today | Immediate |
Four shapes of order. One review.
Every request is read by a manufacturing engineer before a number exists. Pick the shape that matches what you hold, and the quote form asks only for what that shape needs.
A test campaign
Customer-furnished optics or electro-optical and infrared hardware, measured under vacuum at temperature against a written method. Delivered as a report, a calibrated dataset, or a corpus record.
You bring: the article, the requirement, the acceptance criterion
A screening lot
Commercial parts, sensors, or mechanisms screened and documented for flight use, lot by lot, with the traceability a program office audits against.
You bring: the part list, quantities, the screening flow you need
Build-to-print components
Precision optical and mechanical components made to your drawing, with first-article inspection and material certification on request.
You bring: the drawing or model, tolerances, finish, inspection needs
A program qualification packet
A scoped campaign for one program's optics or payload: test plan, article count, and data package. Scoped in conversation, quoted after.
You bring: the program, the articles, the schedule
Open roles on this program
All open positionsSend us a part, or a program.
Component and assembly work quotes in 24 to 48 hours. Program-level manufacturing and qualification discussions are available under NDA.