NLM Photonics, a leader in silicon organic hybrid (SOH) electro-optic technology, announced today that its patented SOH photonic chips, featuring Selerion-HTX™ and JRD1, have successfully arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) as part of NASA's Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE-21) mission aboard the JAXA’s HTV-XI spacecraft launched on October 29, 2025.
The year-long experiment will test NLM’s organic electro-optic (OEO) materials in the extreme conditions of space, advancing the development of high-performance, low-power organic photonic semiconductor technology for both space and terrestrial applications.
“Having our commercial material, Selerion-HTX, and our research material, JRD1, tested in orbit represents a significant milestone for NLM and the field of OEO materials,” said Dr. Lewis Johnson, Chief Technical Officer at NLM. “This mission will provide invaluable data on the stability and durability of our materials in one of the most challenging environments imaginable.”
The MISSE-21 mission exposes various materials to the harsh space environment, including intense radiation, atomic oxygen erosion, extreme temperature fluctuations, and vacuum conditions. These environmental factors are impossible to simulate precisely on Earth, making the ISS an ideal testbed for material durability.
The space-bound chips, featuring NLM's OEO materials, were developed with AIM Photonics as part of a NASA STTR Phase I contract. The 13-month project developed silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) electro-optic modulators designed to deliver high modulation efficiency and low power consumption for spacecraft applications.