Tiny orbiters are transforming the scope of what is possible in space

'These are masterpieces, created in orbit': the rise of the nanosatellite

In a cramped office hidden within the poorly lit corridors of a shopping mall in Israel, sits the equivalent of Nasa’s mission control in Houston.

Yet there are no rows of scientists and flight controllers wearing headsets, all of their faces fixed on a large screen charting spacecraft. And no astronauts telling them they have a problem.

Instead, three large computer screens display a world map showing a satellite, roughly the size of a large shoebox, orbiting the globe. It is one of many private autonomous “space labs” conducting experiments for paying clients including pharmaceutical firms, universities and chemical companies.

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This is the new frontier of space exploration and research. Enormous, slow-moving government agencies such as Nasa no longer have a monopoly. The sector has commercialised, making room for large aerospace companies including SpaceX and Boeing, but also plucky startups exploiting increasingly cheaper access to the heavens.

The one in Israel, SpacePharma, is attempting to tap into one emerging space industry: microgravity experimentation.

At the core of what it provides is the ability to run tests in a situation that is currently impossible to replicate on the planet – a zero gravity, or very close to zero gravity, environment. And without gravity, an unavoidable constant that has forever restricted every experiment, a new field of science is promising breakthroughs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A technician installs a SpacePharma nanosatellite ahead of the launch of an Indian-made rocket in 2017. Photograph: Handout

“In space, everything is different,” said Yair Glick, the research and development director at SpacePharma. Almost nothing – chemicals, plants and even human cells – behave the same in microgravity as they do on Earth.

Even the most simple experiment produces new results: “If we mix water with oil, we know the water goes down and the oil. Not so in space,” said Glick.

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National space agencies have been conducting microgravity research for decades, often on the effects of muscles and bones of astronauts, but also on how it affects other elements, for example, flames – they don’t flicker upwards but instead form a ball.

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The results have been astonishing. One experiment conducted by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency looked at the proteins associated with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which primarily affects young boys and leaves them immobile.

Proteins, the building blocks of cells, crystallise differently in space as they are unburdened by the Earth’s pull and form in a more orderly way. Researchers were able to record their new structure and make medicine that drastically delays the effects of the disease. Its creators claim it could potentially double the lifespan of patients and keep them walking until 25, instead of 12.

Rich Godwin runs the US firm Space Technology Holding, which takes research done in space and applies it to the real-world market. Commercial microgravity testing is a potentially huge market, he believes, and expects more big successes as it privatises. “It’s not changing chemistry. It’s changing physics,” he said. “It’s like the invention of the microscope.”

Yossi Yamin, the chief executive and founder of SpacePharma, estimates there are about 30 private companies selling microgravity experiments.

There are three main ways to do it. The first can be done on Earth by renting a plane and nosediving in parabolic flight, simulating weightlessness. But the process is extremely imprecise and only lasts a few seconds.

SpacePharma (@SP_Microgravity) This is how #microgravity looks like our #headofengineering #parabolicflight 5 #lifescience #experiments on board #dubendorf #switzerland pic.twitter.com/2JnMWScdd8

Most companies instead rent space 250 miles up on the International Space Station, which acts as a sort of real estate agent for low Earth orbit. They make small automatic laboratories that are sent up on a rocket, often when astronauts are delivered, and are plugged into the wall. In these, liquids can be heated, cooled, and tiny automatic pumps allow customers to mix chemicals.

SpacePharma also provides free-roaming satellites, which orbit the Earth independently. Its first was sent up on an Indian rocket in 2017.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Video of Indian satellite launch mission

In the small office in Herzliya, a city that is the tech hub of Israel, the nanosatellites are handmade, in a lab with a plastic 3D printer and a soldering table. “If you have autonomous mobile units, you can command and control it from your mobile,” said Yamin, who worked for the Israeli army’s satellite fleet for 25 years.

Each satellite costs about £2.4m but has enough space for 12 clients, whose experiments can run concurrently, dramatically lowering the cost. The commercial space research business is worth about half a billion, he estimates. But he is betting on a market boom.

Pharmaceutical companies are looking at creating drugs in space that are more effective than those made on Earth. Once these more-perfect proteins are formed, they can be used as “seeds” to duplicate back on Earth. “These are masterpieces created in orbit,” Yamin said.

The next stage in the field of microgravity, industry insiders believe, will be “space factories” where materials that can only be made in space are manufactured.

Twyman Clements, the chief executive of Space Tango, a US firm that began launches last year and has conducted 88 experiments in space, including one commissioned by Budweiser on barley and another that looked at how cannabis reacts in space. But now it is moving into making products in space and bringing them back.

“This is not just about research. It has scalable application,” said Clements, who grew up on a farm in Kentucky and made his own rockets. “We look at high-value products made in microgravity for Earth,” he said. They need to have a high price tag because it costs so much to send material up and down.

There are already customers looking to make fibre optic cables, which are more efficient when manufactured in space. And another product that could be produced in orbit are retinal implants to restore vision, which are made from light-activated proteins but do not form well on Earth under their own weight. Space Tango is looking at how it could make them in space.

“The next steps are toward production,” said Clements. “That has not happened quite yet. The retinal impacts could be the first.”

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