SpaceMD will use Starfall to launch its creation of space pharmaceuticals

Redwire, working through its space-based pharmaceutical subsidiary, SpaceMD, has bought the first operational flight of the SpaceX Starfall to continue the research and development of drugs using microgravity to improve their potency and other qualities. If and when the company creates space-manufactured drugs, they will constitute the first physical product created beyond the Earth.

The only two successful commercial space products have been Earth observation and satellite communications. The possibility of space-manufactured drugs has been the subject of experiments on the International Space Station and, before that, the shuttle for decades. 

SpaceMD’s use of Starfall represents a leap forward toward treatments for everything from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease being created in low Earth orbit.

The SpaceX Starfall was first launched on a Falcon 9 on June 23 on a test flight, though it can also be deployed on a Starship. The “disk-shaped spacecraft” is roughly “2.5 feet tall,” with “a diameter of 10.2 feet,” and weighs “roughly 4,600 pounds.” It carries “about 2,200 pounds” of cargo.  

Starfall has two parts: “an aluminum ‘top plate’ that weighs about 3,090 pounds,” and “a detachable carbon-fiber heat shield.” The cargo rides in the top plate.

A typical Starfall mission would take a payload like the one developed by SpaceMD to low Earth orbit, remain there for a time, and then reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and splash down in the ocean. 

SpaceMD mission is currently scheduled to launch in 2028. It........

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