Scientists launch experiment to grow lab-made food in space

A European Space Agency (ESA) experiment has taken off to investigate the feasibility of producing lab-grown food in space, BBC News reported. 

Aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scientists sent a bioreactor to test the process of creating meals from basic cellular materials in microgravity conditions.

The goal is to assess whether growing food in orbit can reduce the exorbitant cost of feeding astronauts, which can reach up to £20,000 daily. This effort could support future long-term human presence on the Moon or Mars.

Dr Aqeel Shamsul, CEO of Bedford-based Frontier Space, which partnered with Imperial College London on the mission, told BBC News, “Our dream is to have factories in orbit and on the Moon. We need to build manufacturing facilities off world if we are to provide the infrastructure to enable humans to live and work in space.”

The technique used, called precision fermentation, is similar to beer brewing but uses engineered yeast to produce vitamins and nutrients. Dr Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, Director at Imperial’s Bezos Centre, said, “We can make all the elements to make food... proteins, fats, carbohydrates, fibres.”

The initial batch of modified yeast was sent in a cube satellite aboard Phoenix, Europe’s first commercial returnable spacecraft. After a brief orbit, it will splash down off Portugal and be returned for analysis.

Imperial College’s culinary designer, Jakub Radzikowski, is preparing recipes using natural fungi until regulations permit real lab-grown ingredients. “We can create anything from French, Chinese, Indian. It will be possible to replicate any kind of cuisine in space,” he said.

Helen Sharman, the UK’s first astronaut, praised the taste of sample dishes and emphasized the benefits of tailored nutrition. “Lab-grown food could potentially be better for astronauts,” she said, citing biochemical changes during missions that affect hormones, iron, and calcium.

She added, “Astronauts tend to lose weight... So, astronauts might be more open to having something that has been cooked from scratch.”