WASHINGTON — Two European companies are partnering to provide microgravity research and manufacturing missions to low Earth orbit independent of the International Space Station.
Atmos Space Cargo and Space Cargo Unlimited announced Dec. 3 that they will work together on a series of seven missions that will place a spacecraft carrying microgravity payloads into orbit and then return them to Earth.
The BentoBox system, developed by Space Cargo Unlimited, will support more than 100 kilograms of payloads on missions to low Earth orbit. Those payloads will be returned on a Phoenix reentry capsule from Atmos Space Cargo, which uses an inflatable heat shield and decelerator.
The first commercial BentoBox mission is scheduled to launch in late 2025 on a SpaceX rideshare mission, spending two weeks in orbit, said Nicolas Gaume, chief executive of Space Cargo Unlimited, during a presentation at the NewSpace Europe Conference Dec. 3 where he announced the partnership. That will be preceded by a test flight in April.
Two more commercial missions would follow in 2026, and four in 2027. The companies did not disclose launch arrangements for those later missions.
Gaume said his company pursued a free-flyer spacecraft like BentoBox after difficulties flying payloads on the ISS. “We lived the nightmare of all the challenges of the ISS,” he said. “It’s an amazing platform, don’t get me wrong. It allows us to do amazing research. But when you want to produce at scale and make a difference, there’s a major obstacle.”
That obstacle, he said, was people. “Humans make things expensive. Humans make things complicated,” he argued. “They’re amazing to do research and bad for scaling and effective production.”
There is strong interest in BentoBox, Gaume said, with the first commercial mission 80% sold and the next two 40% and 20% sold. He did not disclose specific customers but said they include companies as well as agencies.
The companies did not disclose many technical details about the BentoBox system or its level of development. Space Cargo Unlimited stated that the system can accommodate both pressurized and unpressurized payloads, and offers temperature controls.
Gaume said BentoBox is a precursor to a larger automated space factory called REV1 that his company announced in 2022 it would develop in cooperation with Thales Alenia Space that could be ready as soon as 2028. Space Cargo Unlimited had not provided any public updates on REV1 since that 2022 announcement until it unveiled BentoBox.
Atmos also has yet to test its Phoenix reentry capsule in space. The company announced Nov. 20 a deal with French small launch vehicle developer Latitude for at least five launches annually between 2028 and 2032. Each launch would place a Phoenix capsule into orbit for microgravity research.
Gaume said that BentoBox fit into a broader ecosystem of space microgravity services that includes work on the ISS and future commercial space stations. The stations, he said, are best for research, but “to scale, we believe that an automated free-flyer is the best option.”
During another conference panel, Hubert Moser, senior director of engineering at Flawless Photonics, said there were some benefits to human-tended facilities. His company is working on production of high-quality optical fibers and has conducted tests on the ISS, where astronauts have helped troubleshoot problems.
“The advantage that we saw is that we have another brain up there that can help, which might also be sometimes considered a disadvantage,” he said. “Humans make errors.”
