Regenerative medicine
Retinal organoids that only grow straight in zero G
Kestrel Bio
First defect-free retinal tissue grown off-planet
0 structural defects across 14 samples
Research · Microgravity
Some resultsonly existoff the planet.
Every crewed APSIS mission carries science. The experiments that can only run without gravity help pay for the seats above them, and they come home with results no ground lab can reach.
Disciplines04
Apogee420 km
Endurance5 days
Why orbit
Gravity is the variable no ground lab can switch off.
On Earth, dense things sink and warm things rise. That sounds harmless until you are trying to grow even tissue, cast uniform metal, or crystallize a protein. Convection and sedimentation are gravity effects, and they smear the result.
For roughly five days at four hundred and twenty kilometers, that variable is gone. True free fall, not a few seconds of it. We fly three disciplines where the absence of down is the entire experiment.
LS/ 03
Life sciences
Cells, tissue and organisms behave differently when nothing is pulling them down. Crystals grow cleaner, tissue layers stay aligned, and biology reveals structure it hides on the ground.
MT/ 03
Materials & physics
Alloys, foams and fluids mix and solidify without sedimentation or convection. Castings come back uniform to the micron, and processes that fail under gravity finally hold.
EO/ 03
Earth observation
A crew member who can aim, dwell and re-shoot an instrument resolves detail no fixed satellite can. The planet is the subject, and a human in the loop is the difference.
Flown results
Four experiments that came home with answers.
Each case below ran on a single crewed APSIS mission. The metric is the part the partner could not reach on the ground.
Advanced materials
An alloy that cannot be cast under gravity
Helio Materials
Uniform metal foam for next-gen heat exchangers
3.1× thermal performance vs ground casting
Structural biology
Crystals large enough to finally see the drug bind
Meridian Therapeutics
Crystal structure that unlocked a stalled cancer program
4.7× larger crystals, 0.9 Å resolution
Earth observation
Mapping methane plumes a satellite would smear
Aria Climate
Hand-aimed hyperspectral survey of 40 emission sites
12× the spatial resolution of orbital sensors
Manifest · Payload classes
Three ways to put hardware on a mission.
Pick the class your science needs. We integrate, fly, recover and hand back the hardware with a full environmental log. Nothing leaves the cabin without a chain of custody.
PL-01
Standard locker
A sealed, autonomous experiment that runs untended for the full flight. Loaded the night before launch, recovered on the ship.
- Volume
- 2 U / 4 U
- Mass
- up to 9 kg
- Power
- battery, sealed
- Crew time
- none
PL-02
Powered rack
A serviced bay with cabin power, data downlink and thermal control. For experiments that need to run live and report home.
- Volume
- 8 U bay
- Mass
- up to 24 kg
- Power
- 28 V · 120 W
- Crew time
- 15 min / day
PL-03
Hand-operated
A trained crew member aims, holds and re-shoots an instrument. The human in the loop is the capability, not a convenience.
- Operator
- crew, certified
- Mass
- up to 6 kg
- Power
- cabin · portable
- Crew time
- scheduled passes
Who flies with us
Labs, foundries and institutes that needed orbit.
A standing manifest of research partners. Some fly once. Most come back.
- Kestrel Bio
- Helio Materials
- Meridian Therapeutics
- Aria Climate
- Polaris Genomics
- Vantor Optics
- Sable Aerospace
- Calder Institute
- Northwind Foundry
- Lumen Bioscience
Research payload · From $480,000 per locker
Fly yourexperimentwhere down stops.
Send us a one-page outline of what you want to run and the result you cannot reach on the ground. Our payload team will tell you which class fits and which flight window has room.