The agreement signifies a shared commitment to deploy Exobiosphere's Orbital High-Throughput Screening (OHTS) platform aboard Space Cargo Unlimited's BentoBox platform across several flights, with return-to-Earth capability enabled by ATMOS' re-entry technology.
The collaboration aims to offer Europe its first truly sovereign, end-to-end drug discovery and biomedical screening capability in low Earth orbit. Exobiosphere's OHTS system is able to perform a 200x more experiments than current space biotech platforms, in a standardized fashion. The system can perform thousands of autonomous cellular experiments in microgravity with each mission, with applications ranging from oncology to neurodegeneration or regenerative medicine.
Space Cargo Unlimited's BentoBox, a modular orbital platform purpose-built to advance microgravity research and in-space manufacturing, will host Exobiosphere's payloads and provide, across the series of missions planned, a growing number of defining services to best support OHTS performance and future developments based upon customer needs. This will include real-time data control, AI-powered software support, thermal-management and anti-vibration systems—bringing researchers closer to the experiment than traditional, human crewed stations, which often come with long-wait times, constrained operations, and limited control.
"With this MoU, we're creating Europe's first fully integrated bio-research mission architecture," said Kyle Acierno, CEO of Exobiosphere. "From ground to orbit and back, Exobiosphere and Space Cargo Unlimited are building the next frontier of pharmaceutical innovation—faster, more accurate, and truly sovereign. This is a major step forward for European biotech leadership in space."
The first joint mission is targeted for launch in 2026. Exobiosphere will contribute its autonomous screening payload, capable of executing over 2,000 cellular assays per mission. The OHTS will be integrated into BentoBox, which will be carried first aboard Phoenix—a re-entry capable, small-scale free-flyer developed by ATMOS-, and ultimately REV1, full-scale free flyer developed by Space Cargo Unlimited to enable frequent and cost-effective research in space.
"Space Cargo Unlimited has always believed that space is the next frontier for biotechnology," said Nicolas Gaume, CEO of Space Cargo Unlimited. "Partnering with Exobiosphere allows us to concretely deliver on this promise. Our BentoBox platform, with its defining subsystems and frequent schedule of launch, paired with the OHTS system, offers pharmaceutical and life science customers across Europe a dedicated, autonomous orbital lab. It delivers real-time data and greater control than legacy ISS-based methods, along with the speed and repeatability needed to bring space biotech to market."
This partnership comes at a time of accelerating demand for microgravity-enabled health technologies. Studies have shown that cells behave differently in space, exhibiting accelerated growth, aging, and drug response—key factors that improve the predictive power of pre-clinical models. Exobiosphere's OHTS takes advantage of these phenomena by offering automated, scalable high-throughput testing that would otherwise take months or years to replicate on Earth.
By combining Space Cargo Unlimited's logistics and infrastructure with Exobiosphere's biotechnology expertise, the companies are creating a unique ecosystem that can serve pharmaceutical, academic, and government stakeholders seeking novel R&D capabilities.
This agreement at Paris Air Show reflects both companies' commitment to advancing European autonomy in space-based science and to making space a viable laboratory for the next generation of therapies.
About Exobiosphere
Exobiosphere is the world's first contract research organization dedicated to high-throughput testing and drug discovery in space. By combining space-grade lab automation, microgravity research, and advanced analytics, the company helps pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare partners enhance scientific discovery and accelerate product development. Its Orbital High-Throughput Screening Device (OHTS) is designed to uncover novel cellular and disease behaviors in a microgravity environment—insights that are difficult or impossible to replicate on Earth. Headquartered in Luxembourg at the House of BioHealth, Exobiosphere's mission is to shorten R&D timelines and bring safer, more effective treatments to market for patients worldwide.
About Space Cargo Unlimited
Space Cargo Unlimited is developing the next generation of European space infrastructure to deliver autonomous, return-capable missions to low Earth orbit. Its BentoBox platform is a modular in-orbit laboratory and production facility engineered to support microgravity research, in-space manufacturing, and technology demonstration at commercial scale. Designed from the ground up to maximize control, data access, and repeatability, Space Cargo Unlimited enables scientific and industrial users to test, build, and return new discoveries from space. Headquartered in Luxembourg with a growing ecosystem of European partners, Space Cargo Unlimited's mission is to unlock the full value of microgravity for applications on Earth.
