Inside the Mission to Send Trash-Transforming Bacteria Into Space

The findings from this project are now published in the journal NPJ Microgravity. Read the results here.

In 2022, SeedLabs funded a new microbiological research initiative in collaboration with scientists from institutes including the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and Harvard Medical School. The goal? To conduct first-of-its-kind testing on a system designed to upcycle single-use plastic aboard the International Space Station (ISS). 

Harnessing the power of bacteria and enzymes, the experiment set out to unlock a new method for studying the degradation, reuse, and redesign of synthetic plastic that could reimagine the future of waste management—both in spaceflight and on Earth. 

^{MicroPET bioreactor. An autonomous closed-system that uses enzymes to break down PET plastic and bacteria to upcycle it into a high-performance nylon monomer. Image by Sunanda Sharma.}

Single-use plastics account for approximately 40% of the plastic produced every year. While many of these products, such as plastic bags and food wrappers, have a use time of mere minutes to hours, they may persist in the environment for hundreds of years.¹ Meanwhile, plastic production is increasing exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950 to 448 million tons by 2015, and production is expected to double again by 2050.² This global accumulation of plastic pollution has been named a planetary crisis by the United Nations.³

Single-use plastic is a problem beyond our home planet, too. With limited ways to manage waste aboard spaceships, trash can quickly accumulate on long-term missions.

What if microbes could help solve these problems?

“Microbes have evolved enzymes and catabolic pathways to degrade and catabolize human-made plastics as carbon and energy sources. Our system takes that biological process one step further, microbially upcycling those degraded compounds into a high-performance material for reconfiguration,” explained NREL biologist Allison Werner. “This empowers us to not only redefine the lifetime of synthetic plastics on Earth, but represents a new frontier for resource utilization in space travel.”

The teams on this project built a biological system to upcycle single-use polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic into an environmentally benign “new plastic” via engineered bacteria. The project, nicknamed “MicroPET,” first introduces PET to an enzyme, which breaks it down into organic compounds, then utilizes the bacteria Pseudomonas putida KT2440 strain AW165 to convert these compounds into β-ketoadipic acid (BKA)—a high-performance nylon monomer which can be formulated into various objects (think: a sneaker, a chair, or even a spacesuit). 

“We founded Seed Health with the belief that the application of microbes holds vast potential to solve some of our greatest health and environmental challenges. It is an honor to collaborate with experts at the forefront of microbial innovation to empower a circular economy for plastic and to imagine a future where ecologies impacted by human activity could recover,” said Seed Health Co-Founder, Raja Dhir.

“Microbes’ versatile upcycling capabilities offer a promising tool for the future of space exploration, where In-situ Resource Utilization is crucial for longer and more adaptable manned space missions,” explained Xin Liu, MIT Space Exploration Initiative Arts Curator. “We hope our open-source system can […] enable more access to synthetic biology experiments and applications in spaceflight.”

^{Pseudomonas putida bacteria have been engineered for plastic upcycling. Image by Allison Werner (NREL).}

The biological system launched for the ISS aboard SpaceX CRS-26 on November 26th, 2022 out of Kennedy Space Center. The experiment was studied in orbit for 43 days in order to investigate how the unique microgravity and radiation at the space station would impact the processes of biological plastic upcycling.

As for the results, once in orbit and plugged into the ISS’s experimental module, the autonomous system successfully proceeded with the pre-programmed experiment schedule. The experiment facilitated culturing and data collection without the need for human intervention or astronaut resources.

This was one small step for Pseudomonas putida bacteria; one giant leap for space science. 

In the open-access paper on this study, published in NPJ Microgravity, the authors describe the system’s design so that other plastic upcycling researchers (often small, early-stage research groups and students) can use it in their own work.⁴ “Together, we posit that the open and modular nature of the MOBP [Modular Open Biological Platform] will work towards the democratization of access to biological research in space, currently a challenge for progression in the field,” they write. 

The open-source nature of this paper means that others will be able to use a similar system (which was built from accessible 3D printed and commercially available components) in their own research. Importantly, the paper also shares how researchers can improve future iterations of the system, since not every aspect of this initial mission went according to plan.

Unfortunately, unforeseen conditions on board the ISS experimentation unit affected some of MicroPET’s in-flight functioning. Data logs show that a brief power failure on the ISS disrupted the bioreactor system, which ended up receiving power for less than 25% of its time in orbit. In addition, onboard temperatures were higher and more variable than anticipated. Despite diligent preparation and contingency planning, these disturbances yielded some of the project’s data inconclusive. 

In spite of these challenges, the autonomous system that the team built will be a valuable addition to the scientific field, enabling others to study microbiological processes without draining astronauts’ time and resources.

These results are a reminder that science can be unpredictable, especially when it’s conducted in variable conditions. Nonetheless, researchers will use the learnings from this mission to keep evolving microbiological plastic research in spaceflight—and beyond. Despite the experimental challenges, microbial plastic degradation remains a promising avenue for waste management both on Earth and in space.

As Werner says, “We must remember that our Earth is also a spaceship—for us, the impact of this research goes beyond spaceflight, to benefit our home planet.”

SeedLabs helps fund and catalyze emergent environmental research and microbial innovations to address some of humanity’s greatest challenges. This is just one example of the innovative projects we support: Learn more about how our partners are seeking bacteria that can help sequester carbon, restore biodiversity, and beyond at seed.com/seedlabs.

1. Silva, A. L. P., Prata, J. C., Walker, T. R., Campos, D., Duarte, A. C., Soares, A. M., Barcelò, D., & Rocha-Santos, T. (2020). Rethinking and optimising plastic waste management under COVID-19 pandemic: Policy solutions based on redesign and reduction of single-use plastics and personal protective equipment. The Science of the Total Environment, 742, 140565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140565
2. Porta, R., Sabbah, M., & Di Pierro, P. (2022). Bio-Based materials for packaging. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(7), 3611. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23073611 
3. Circular solutions to the Triple Planetary Crisis. UNEP. (n.d.). https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/speech/circular-solutions-triple-planetary-crisis 
4. Liu, X., Pataranutaporn, P., Fram, B., Werner, A. Z., Sharma, S., Gauthier, N. P., Erickson, E., Chwalek, P., Ramirez, K. J., Ingraham, M. A., Murphy, N. P., Ryon, K. A., Tierney, B. T., Beckham, G. T., Mason, C. E., & Ekblaw, A. (2025). Development and flight-testing of modular autonomous cultivation systems for biological plastics upcycling aboard the ISS. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-025-00463-2