Kentucky-based space science company Space Tango is preparing to make a transition from one business sector to another, and is enlisting the help of a Canadian expert with government, political, and startup experience: Dr. Alain Berinstain.
Founded by Kris Kimel and then-graduate student Twyman Clements, Space Tango was created to “simplify and increase access to space-based R&D and product development.” They’ve provided this access through their CubeLabs: standardized, automated boxes with carefully separated compartments that can hold scientific equipment and test samples. Scientists can buy inexpensive space inside a CubeLab and run automated experiments in microgravity aboard the International Space Station.
This business has been very successful for Space Tango, especially regarding biological and biomedical research. They’ve achieved profitability by providing access to everything from student groups, to universities, to beer brewers, and even to cannabis companies. Space Tango has even reaped some intellectual property rights from this business, as Space Tango co-founder Kris Kimel said in a 2019 webcast about space-based hemp research.
Transitioning to Manufacturing
These successful experiments appear to have set Space Tango’s sights on a different goal, however: actual biological manufacturing in space.
These projects have led to recognition from NASA’s Demand Stimulation Awards, which directed Space Tango to explore three different projects. Two of the projects involve Space Tango working with Cedars-Sinai of Los Angeles to explore the production of stem cells in space for medical purposes, and to work with the UC San Diego/Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in La Jolla, California “establish an new on-orbit biomedical sector for stem cell advancement, with a fully operational self-sustaining orbital laboratory anticipated by 2025.”
The third project is more focused on a specific product: working with the biomedical company LambdaVision to manufacture protein-based artificial retinas in orbit. These artificial retinas have received attention as a potential biomedical breakthrough that could fix a wide variety of eye-related diseases, including retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration.
With these and other successes, Space Tango is attempting to pivot to become a key provider of manufacturing capability in orbit. Their website and promotional material describes them as a manufacturing company, and they already have plans for the “ST-42,” a fully-autonomous small-scale orbital manufacturing platform specifically designed for producing patient therapeutics.
CSA Expert Turned Innovation Officer
If it happens, it’s Dr. Berinstain that will help to get them the rest of the way.
Space Tango’s new Chief Innovation Officer has a profoundly impressive pedigree. He was the director of Planetary Exploration and Space Astronomy at the Canadian Space Agency, as well as Director of Science and Academic Development. He also served as Director of Policy for former Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau during Garneau’s time as Minister of Transportation. Dr. Berinstain has become a world-class expert in space-related government and government relations.
Yet he also knows the space startup business too. He was the vice president of Global Development at Moon Express, where he leveraged his knowledge of government decision making practices to build relationships with potential clients and partners for the lunar delivery startup. He’s also done consulting work with a variety of different space companies, including high-profile companies like Virgin Galactic and Sierra Nevada Corp.
Someone with this CV could go nearly anywhere. In an interview with SpaceQ, Dr. Berinstain explained why he decided on Space Tango.
“I cut my teeth with the CSA on microgravity platforms and payloads,” said Berinstain, ”so it’s a field I’m very comfortable with. Then put this commercial lens on it … and you’ve got me.” He was attracted to how Space Tango was “growing fast and already profitable.” They invited him to help them with “finding new use cases in the long term that will be commercially viable.” Or, as he put it, “to find that killer app where people are going to make money off of working in space.” To that, he said, “the approach that I believe in is to look around the world we’re in,” then “bringing to their attention the fact that gravity has a role in the processes that they’re using.”
When discussing the NASA awards, Berinstain said that both the stem cell and Lambdavision projects were ideal examples of “killer apps” for Space Tango’s goals of space-based manufacturing.
In both cases, space-based production would make a huge difference. Growing the protein layers used in LambaVision’s artificial retinas is challenging, as gravity causes density and concentration gradients in the protein solutions. This leads to both heat convection in the growth medium, and a lack of uniformity in the retinas’ protein layers. Lambdavision’s experiments with Space Tango have shown that these issues aren’t an issue in microgravity, resulting in a higher-quality implant that requires fewer layers. Berinstain said that “it’s a much more quiescent environment.”
With stem cells, Berinstain explained that they aren’t hard to get now — you can get stem cells for many applications from your own cheek — so the current challenge is to have them “keep their ‘stemness’ as long as possible,” without having them all clump together and start to differentiate. On Earth, that’s accomplished by rotating them; but Berinstain said that “when you do that, you create turbulence, which isn’t great for growing stem cells.” He said that “growing them in microgravity extends the time that they can grow, so you can grow more cells before they differentiate.”
Biomedical products like these also don’t require a vast amount of space or production infrastructure to be both productive and profitable. Berinstain explained that Space Tango’s manufacturing capabilities could be incorporated into upcoming commercial space stations, or be handled through the semi-autonomous ST-42 module. That’s going to be necessary for near-future “killer apps” for space-based production, and Berinstain said he was working hard to discover and develop more of them.
Space Tango’s Challenges and Opportunities
Still, one big question remains: why Space Tango? They’re an established and profitable company, but they profit from providing “middleware” solutions for scientists. Can they really pull off this transition to manufacturing?
Berinstain grants that it will be a challenge. Switching to a new kind of business isn’t easy. Many Canadian and American companies struggle to grow their businesses after the start-up phase and he recognizes that a big part of his job will be helping Space Tango with its scale-up. Commercial space stations are still in the planning stages, ST-42 is still mostly theoretical, and nobody else is using space for production yet. Even if the market’s there, Space Tango may need to undergo serious corporate reorganization, or even the creation of subsidiary businesses. All those things may dissuade potential investors and clients.
Yet Berinstain is optimistic. He notes that Space Tango is focused on medical and life sciences products. Those don’t require massive infrastructure, and a lot can be produced in a comparatively small space. Instead, he said that the biggest challenge was maintaining a clean and sealed environment, and to have built a reputation for doing so that can help overcome any regulatory squeamishness about medical and biological production in space.
Space Tango may be in an excellent position on that front. They have years of experience sending closed experimental CubeLabs into space, then returning them to Earth with useful and uncontaminated samples and data. They have NASA’s support and financial backing, and good relations with the other ISS countries. They’re also demonstrating their commitment to FDA guidelines by incorporating the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) guidelines into their plans for the ST-42.
And, now, they have Dr. Alain Berinstain, who has a lifetime of experience with government and governmental agencies and a keen focus on business development. He knows it won’t be easy, and said “the fact that it’s difficult is what makes it fun.”
Updated: 3:45 p.m for a correction of Kris Kimel’s name. As well “protein crystals” should have been “protein layers.” Also, “middleman” should have been “middleware.”