Elon Musk has started selling space-based drug labs:
Pharmaceutical companies load raw materials into SpaceX’s Starfall capsule, send them into orbit to grow crystals, then splash down in the Pacific.
Starfall is a 3.1-meter-diameter disc-shaped capsule with a 1,000-kilogram payload capacity. It can be launched on either a Falcon 9 or Starship. Its maiden flight is scheduled for June 23, with recovery in the Pacific two days later.
What pharmaceutical companies want are crystals. Earth’s gravity makes protein drugs crystallize unevenly, while in microgravity the particles are smaller and more uniform. Merck has sent Keytruda crystals to the space station. The resulting subcutaneous injection was approved last September: one shot takes one minute, compared with a 30-minute intravenous infusion before.
Starfall’s first dedicated contract is Redwire’s SpaceMD: 32 drug-crystal modules will be sent up in 2028.
More and more novel things will be sent into space in the future. Let’s think big—what else could there be?
Pharmaceutical companies load raw materials into SpaceX’s Starfall capsule, send them into orbit to grow crystals, then splash down in the Pacific.
Starfall is a 3.1-meter-diameter disc-shaped capsule with a 1,000-kilogram payload capacity. It can be launched on either a Falcon 9 or Starship. Its maiden flight is scheduled for June 23, with recovery in the Pacific two days later.
What pharmaceutical companies want are crystals. Earth’s gravity makes protein drugs crystallize unevenly, while in microgravity the particles are smaller and more uniform. Merck has sent Keytruda crystals to the space station. The resulting subcutaneous injection was approved last September: one shot takes one minute, compared with a 30-minute intravenous infusion before.
Starfall’s first dedicated contract is Redwire’s SpaceMD: 32 drug-crystal modules will be sent up in 2028.
More and more novel things will be sent into space in the future. Let’s think big—what else could there be?
