Helogen Corp., a space manufacturing startup synthesizing materials in microgravity, is launching two missions in October that will develop substances used in artificial retinas and orthopedic applications.
The first mission will allow the four-year-old Helogen to fly out a polymer used in orthopedics and monitor its performance. The second, in a partnership with the Connecticut-based biotech company LambdaVision Inc., will contain a protein used in artificial retinas. For both missions, the goal is to prove that Helogen’s space factories – which are manufactured in Inglewood – can be as automated and closely supervised as those on Earth, as well as meet the same regulatory standards.
“Our upcoming missions in October are focused on proving to the regulatory bodies that, yes, we can do this in a repeatable, traceable manner,” said Shishir Bankapur, the chief executive of Helogen. “We’re meeting, if not exceeding, all the requirements for terrestrial regulations or terrestrial good manufacturing practices. And we’re documenting everything, and we are working with the (Food and Drug Administration) to define a pathway forward.”
To do that, New York-based Helogen has set up a manufacturing and engineering facility in Inglewood, which will support its preparation for launch missions, spacecraft integrations, and develop and fabricate its space factories. The company’s HEL-IOS manufacturing platform manipulates biomaterials using automation, much like an industrial factory on Earth would. To replace the lack of in-person observation, each factory is equipped with an analysis system that allows those on Earth to monitor the process happening in space.
“If you get a bad batch of, for example, Tylenol, you want to trace back to what happened,” Bankapur said. “And if we’re talking about manufacturing in space, we need that accountability and we need that traceability.”
Outsourcing manufacturing
Helogen, and companies like it, are opening the door for private firms to access space for various missions, which is typically reserved for early research. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration often funds research projects through programs like the Space Biology Program, whereby test tubes of solutions are delivered to the International Space Station for astronauts to mix manually. It often takes many missions and tweaked variables to send compounds into space and back to Earth to study. In transit, they are unobservable.
“This mission marks an important next step as we expand our work beyond the ISS and begin testing our protein on a new autonomous platform,” Nicole Wagner, the chief executive of LambdaVision, said in a statement. “Our work with Helogen will help us establish additional quality controls for evaluating our protein on orbit, building on the knowledge gained through our ISS missions…”
Now that Space Technologies Corp. has brought launch costs down, companies are exploring ways to outsource mundane processes performed on our planet to another. The emerging space medicine sector comprises companies that run the gamut from providing first-aid supplies that are adaptable in microgravity, to developing diagnostic tools, to Varda Space Industries, an El Segundo-based pharmaceutical company that crystalizes active drug ingredients in microgravity. According to PitchBook Data Inc., that small-but-growing cluster of companies is on track to raise a record-making amount of funding by the end of 2026.
Helogen is expanding beyond medical use cases. Bankapur said the company aims to be the space version of DuPont de Nemours Inc. or 3M Company.
“We own the spacecraft, the labs on board, the operational process, the software, all of that. What we really asked of customers was just to bring their product or their science,” Bankapur said. “You don’t have to be a space company to take advantage of the effects of space. We’re going to be that infrastructure, kind of like an internet connection.”
