Sustainable cultivation solutions on Earth and regenerative life-support in space.
Created: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2025-09-06
Company - Interstellar Lab
Product/Service - BioPod, NUCLEUS
- Classification
- Surface Habitats & Structures
- Category
- Surface Habitats
In-Space Manufacturing
- Fields
- Food for Earth
Food for Space
- Status
- Development
- First launch
- 2026
- LOW EARTH ORBIT - MISSION BLOOM 2025
- LOW EARTH ORBIT - NUCLEUS 2026
- MOON - MISSION LITTLE PRINCE 2026
- MOON - MOONPOD 2028
- MARS - EBIOS 2030
A few years from now, we will able to send a BabyDome to Mars… Interstellar Lab's BioPod prepares for plant cultivation on the Moon. The unique creation is an inflatable environmentally controlled plant cultivation pod with a resilient and modular design that is intended to go beyond the earth’s surface.
- Growth Systems. NUCLEUS is a modular bioregenerative system that produces fresh microgreens, vegetables, mushrooms, and insects to provide micronutrients for long-term space missions. It combines several autonomous phytotrons to create a self-sustaining food production system that minimizes water, air, and nutrient inputs.
NUCLEUS
NUCLEUS paves the way towards permanent settlements in space or vertical farming solutions on Earth.
- Announced that Japan Manned Space Systems Corporation (JAMSS), Interstellar Lab, and Exobiosphere as the latest payload partners for its Haven-1 Lab.
- The new partners will leverage the microgravity environment of the Haven-1 Lab by installing payloads focused in the areas of advanced materials development, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical development.
- Interstellar Lab’s Eden 1.0 is a next-generation BioCapsule engineered for advanced life science research on orbital stations. A direct spin-off from Interstellar Lab’s food production system NuCLEUS, which won the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge, Eden 1.0 is a fully automated controlled-environment greenhouse with autonomous climate and light and fertigation control. Equipped with several sensors and cameras, Eden 1.0 captures real-time data, allowing Interstellar Lab to perform comparable experiments on the ground. The goal is to measure and understand the impact of microgravity on plant growth, including nutrient dynamics, phenotyping, and genetic adaptation.
Little Prince
INTERSTELLAR LAB PARTNERS WITH ASTROLAB TO GROW FLOWERS ON THE MOON, 2024-11-23.
Payloads to be Launched on Upcoming SpaceX Mission to the Moon, 2023-11-21
- Five customers are releasing details of their payloads today: Argo Space, Astroport, Avalon Space, Interstellar Lab, and LifeShip. Three more customers are contracted with Astrolab but intend to release details of their payloads at a future date, closer to launch. Collectively, these eight contracts are valued at more than $160 million.
- Interstellar Lab of Ivry-sur-Seine, France and Kennedy Space Center, Florida plans to use FLEX to deploy the two small plant pods on the lunar surface. Once deployed, Interstellar Lab will measure the impact of the lunar environment on the plant’s phenotype and molecular composition.
- "We are very excited to team up with Astrolab for our mission LITTLE PRINCE,” said Barbara Belvisi, founder and CEO, Interstellar Lab. “As Antoine Saint Exupéry wrote: "If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers."
- “This is the first of many Interstellar Lab missions,” Belvisi added. “We look forward to helping our terrestrial customers access Space and grow a garden on the Moon.”
Status Comment
News, Research, Projects and Patents
| Title | Type | Date | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food pods and vertical farming could help us grow crops on Mars | News | 2023-03-24 |