Houston-based startup Starlab Space, a commercial space station developer, announced it has partnered with Helogen Corporation, an automation platform industrializing orbit, on February 18, 2026.
While Starlab Space seeks to expand access to low Earth orbit research, Halogen Corporation bets on scalable, regulatory-grade manufacturing and autonomous biological operations in space. Together, the companies are to expand how life sciences research is conducted in microgravity – moving from isolated experiments to persistent discovery in orbit.
“Microgravity is not just a research environment. It’s a fundamentally new manufacturing and discovery regime,” said Shishir Bankapur, CEO of Helogen.
“Our mission is to unlock biological processes that Earth’s gravity suppresses and translate them into scalable breakthroughs in medicine and materials.”
Starlab’s globally accessible orbital firm will now integrate Helogen’s HEL-IOS, a biological operating system, which will enable manufacturing of high-value biomaterials in orbit through biological cultivation, processing, sequencing and in-line analytics.
By embedding end-to-end automation directly into station infrastructure, HEL-IOS transforms orbital platforms from experimental environments into scalable production facilities; commercial partners can scale industrial output with fewer flights and reduced operational overhead, and researchers will gain continuous automated workflows that accelerate their work – without a dependence on crew-tended operations or frequent sample return.
“This partnership reflects exactly how we envision life sciences operating in low Earth orbit […] We’re enabling researchers to move beyond short-duration experiments and toward sustained discovery and manufacturing workflows that can deliver real impact on Earth,” added Bankapur.
Microgravity offers conditions that are impossible to replicate on Earth, allowing for improved protein crystallization to support drug development, 3D cell growth and disease models that more accurately mimic human biology, in addition to advanced stem cell research with potential applications for treating illnesses like Parkinson’s, diabetes and Alzheimer’s.
The announcement also comes at a time when low earth orbit has transitioned from a government-dominated domain into a bustling new space economy – fueled by lower launch costs, the rise of small satellites, and the proliferation of mega constellations.
According to Deloitte, the space industry is set to be valued at $800 billion USD by 2027 – an ecosystem that contributes to technological progress, economic growth and strategic advantages globally. From 2007 to 2022, the total value of space activities more than doubled.
Image source: Planet Volumes via Unsplash+
Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.