Sierra Space Strengthens Partnership with Yuri to Advance Space-Based Medical Research
Sierra Space, a leading commercial space company and defense tech prime that is Building a Platform in Space to Benefit Life on Earth,® and Yuri, a Germany-based space biotech company, announced today an agreement for one new ScienceTaxi BioSpin mission to continue biological and medical research advancements and drug discovery in microgravity. The culmination of the partnership will ultimately aim to provide scientific solutions for treating and curing diseases on Earth.
This agreement builds on the partnership forged between the two companies in 2022 to deliver Yuri’s ScienceTaxi incubator to the International Space Station (ISS). Under this expanded contract, Sierra Space will now serve as the primary provider of payload integration, logistics, and operational support for Yuri’s ScienceTaxi throughout all mission phases—launch, in-orbit operations, and re-entry. The continued partnership also marks a commercial breakthrough against the current and ongoing limitations in Low Earth Orbit to provide in-space biotech R&D, production and fabrication via the Yuri middeck locker facilities and bioreactors.
“Our expanded partnership with Yuri aligns with our vision of making space more accessible for scientific innovation in order to ultimately benefit those on Earth,” said Ken Shields, Sr. Director of Business Development at Sierra Space. “By managing Yuri’s ScienceTaxi’s full operational cycle, we’re empowering researchers worldwide to explore new frontiers in biotechnology and medicine that could drive breakthroughs with real-world applications.”
Yuri’s ScienceTaxi BioSpin is a state-of-the-art life sciences incubator that can host up to 38 individual experiments per launch, enabling a wide range of high-precision biological and medical experiments and production in space. With automated systems, controlled temperatures, and real-time data collection, it allows researchers the ability to analyze the effects of microgravity on various biological specimens, such as organoids, plants, and crystals. The built-in centrifuge also provides adjustable gravity levels, enabling comparative studies with Earth, lunar, or Martian gravity as a reference.
“Our partnership with Sierra Space is a strong example of how international collaboration can drive life sciences beyond Earth. As we move towards a post-ISS era, transatlantic partnerships like ours are more critical than ever, providing a reliable and sustainable pathway for commercial research in Low Earth Orbit,” said Maria Birlem, CEO, Yuri GmbH. “By ensuring continued access to space for biotech innovation, we are laying the foundation for groundbreaking discoveries that will shape the future of medicine and biotechnology—both in orbit and on Earth.”
Sierra Space’s agreement with Yuri underscores its dedication to providing scalable, reliable, and innovative solutions for space-based research. The partnership aims to extend ScienceTaxi’s use beyond the ISS and integrate it into upcoming commercial space platforms. As commercial space exploration evolves, this collaboration sets the stage for groundbreaking discoveries that could reshape medicine and biotechnology on Earth.
About Sierra Space
Sierra Space is a leading commercial space company at the forefront of innovation and the commercialization of space in the Orbital Age®, building an end-to-end business and technology platform in space to benefit life on Earth. With more than 30 years and 500 missions of space flight heritage, the company is reinventing both space transportation with Dream Chaser®, the world’s only commercial spaceplane, and the future of space destinations with the company’s inflatable and expandable space station technology. Using commercial business models, the company is also delivering orbital services to commercial, DoD and national security organizations, expanding production capacity to meet the needs of constellation programs. In addition, Sierra Space builds a host of systems and subsystems across solar power, mechanics and motion control, environmental control, life support, propulsion and thermal control, offering myriad space-as-a-service solutions for the new space economy.
About Yuri
Yuri is a leading commercial space biotech company that leverages the unique conditions of microgravity to research and develop groundbreaking biotechnological innovations and provides implementation services (Yuri Lab-as-a-Service). With over 25 successful research missions to the ISS and partnerships with NASA, ESA, GSK, Charité Berlin, and MIT, our interdisciplinary team of aerospace engineers and biologists is taking pharmaceutical and biotech research to a new level—advancing drug discovery, optimized biomaterials, and sustainable food production processes both in space and on Earth. To achieve these goals Yuri manufactures space-based multi-user research, production and fabrication facilities for commercial biotechnology and pharma companies as well as international space agencies. Together with its partners, Yuri builds up the future commercial in-space life-science infrastructure.
