Towards efficient biomanufacturing for deep space missions

Adam Arkin

CUBES/UC Berkeley

The time has come to go to Mars! Or soon in any case. I will introduce CUBES: The Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES, http://cubes.space) whose mission is to support biomanufacturing for deep space exploration that realizes the inherent mass, power, and volume advantages of space biotechnology over traditional abiotic approaches. I will outline the reference mission architecture driving our integrated design and the emerging systems-modeling framework of our biomanufacturing systems. I will cover the progress by our team on the biologically engineered components and their interconnections by which in-situ resources and waste-streams are converted into useful products to astronauts on an extended stay on Mars. Our advances span the landscape of hybrid nanomaterial/microbial technologies for carbon and nitrogen fixation, systems for regolith detoxification, and nutrient production and systems that use these feedstocks to support microbial production of polymers for 3D printing of tools, reactors, and other systems as well as microbial and plant based food and pharmaceuticals. These systems are being developed to minimize and recycle wastes effectively, moving the space sciences and bioengineering communities towards a set of shared technologies for addressing the challenges in the human exploration of Mars.