Spaceflight Hardware for High-Fidelity, Reproducible Science
Rhodium sources, builds, and operates NASA-approved/NASA-certified space science hardware. Our hardware portfolio enables reproducible and scalable biology, chemistry, and advanced materials research aboard the ISS and commercial space platforms. Our systems are plug-and-play, highly configurable, and designed to support high sample numbers, replication, and rapid mission execution.
Built for
- Biomanufacturing & synthetic biology
- Aerospace Medicine
- Pharmaceuticals
- Cell culture (stem cells, human and mammalian cells)
- Microbiology (bacteria, fungi, microeukaryotes)
- Virology
- Protein & chemical crystallization
- Polymer chemistry & chemical mixtures
- Plant & photosynthetic growth systems
- Regolith and In-situ resource utilization studies
- Advanced materials
- Filtration and fluid mixing
Rhodium Science Chamber Facility™
The Rhodium Science Chamber Facility™ is a modular, flight-proven research architecture composed of interchangeable sample chambers and carriers. Configurations can be flown independently or combined within a single mission to tailor sample formats, volumes, and experimental layouts. Rhodium Science Chambers can be configured to fly 500+ samples in a single mission.
All Rhodium Science Chambers are compatible with −95 °C to +50 °C workflows in orbit.
Rhodium Cryotube™
This foundational Rhodium Science Chamber configuration supports 0.2-10.0 mL of fluid volume for liquid culture, preservation, and sampling for post-flight analysis.
Use cases: microbial culture, biomanufacturing intermediates, chemical samples, multi-timepoint preservation
Photo Credit: NASA. Astronaut Dr. Kate Rubins operating the Rhodium Science Chamber for a microbial growth mission.
Rhodium Biocuvette™
This self-contained Rhodium Science Chamber, the Rhodium Biocuvette™, has a 5 mL volume and can be configured for 36 Biocuvettes per time point. The Biocuvettes are optically clear, enabling optical monitoring for spectrophotometer OD readings.
Use cases: plant and algal growth, photosynthetic biology, microbial dynamics, synthetic biology, optical assays
Photo Credit: NASA. Rhodium Biocuvettes™ germinating several seeds for an ISS plant mission
Rhodium Fluid & Culture Bags™
These Science Chambers support soft-container liquid culture, storage, processing, and subsampling. Fluid and Culture Bags support ~5–500 mL of liquid for biological culturing or chemical stowage.
Use cases: liquid cell culture, biomedical, microbial and algal growth, chemical mixtures, media optimization, filtration studies, fluid dynamics research
Rhodium Petri Dish™
A Science Chamber configuration supporting 2” Petri dishes for solid-media and surface-growth experiments.
Use cases: microbial growth, fungal growth, biofilms, colony morphology, material–biology interactions, pharmacology
Rhodium Well Plate™
A Science Chamber configuration supporting 6 to 96-well plates with gas-permeable options for high-throughput screening.
Use cases: screening assays, synthetic biology libraries, small-volume chemistry, optimization studies, organoid growth, drug-interaction studies, PCR-workflows
Rhodium Variable Gravity Centrifuge Facility™
The Rhodium Variable Gravity Centrifuge Facility supports replicated culturing across multiple time points and gravities: microgravity, Lunar, Martian, and Earth. Recently, the Rhodium Centrifuge conducted the largest, in-space biomanufacturing ever performed with the DARPA B-SURE program. Over the course of 4 missions, conducted in less than 2 years, the centrifuge ran over 850 samples, across six time points, and across 5 academic teams (upcoming publication in Nature Biotech).
Rhodium Variable Gravity Centrifuge™
The Rhodium Centrifuge is currently on the ISS and suitable for BSL-2 organisms and is compatible with multiple Rhodium Science Chamber configurations: the Rhodium 1-Liter Incubation Vessel™ (RhSC-1LIV), Rhodium Cryotubes™, Rhodium Well-plates™, the Rhodium Chem-Bio Facility™, and the Rhodium Fluid & Culture Bags™.
Use case: biomanufacturing, Lunar gravity, Martian gravity, plant growth, microbial culturing, centrifugation, comparative space-Earth controls
Photo: NASA. The Rhodium Variable Gravity Centrifuge™ in the copula of the ISS after completing the largest space biomanufacturing program.
Rhodium 1-Liter Incubation Vessel™
The Rhodium 1-Liter Incubation Vessel™ is suitable for BSL-2 organisms and compatible with the Rhodium Variable Gravity Centrifuge™ for Lunar and Martian-gravity studies. The 1L Incubation Vessel can support various incubation temperatures (+22 °C, +37 °C) and preservation profiles (+4 °C, −20 °C, −95 °C).
This sealed, large-volume vessel enables bulk culture, larger plant growth, incubation, preservation, and variable-gravity experimentation within a single controlled environment.
Use cases: Lunar gravity-response biology, Martian gravity-response biology, larger plant growth studies, biomanufacturing, fermentation, scale-up and media optimization, bulk liquid culture, chemical reactions, and long-duration incubation experiments
Photo: Astronaut Sunita Williams pictured with the Rhodium Multi-layer Containment sleeve (left) and the Rhodium 1-Liter Incubation Vessel (right).
Rhodium Chem-Bio Facility™
The Rhodium Chem-Bio Process Facility™ is a powered, fluid handling system currently aboard the ISS operating at a range of desired RPMs. Up to three Rhodium Fluid Transfer Cassettes™ (one cassette pictured below) can be installed into the Facility per run. Each Rhodium Cassette™ has a 400mL fluid capacity, enabling up to 1.2L total volume per run - the largest accommodated volume on the ISS for scientific research.
Compatible with Rhodium Fluid & Culture Bags™
Use cases: media exchange, cell culture, chemical reactions, microbial growth, filtration, fluid dynamics
Photo: The Rhodium Cassette™ is compatible with cell culture and fluid bags and placed within the Rhodium Chem-Bio Process Facility™ to enable constant fluid flow, cell culture mixing, media feeding, sub-sampling, and multi-generational growth experiments.
Photo: Rhodium Biocuvette Growth Facility™ accommodating large-scale plant growth
Rhodium Biocuvette Growth Facility™
This Facility supports up to 24 Rhodium Biocuvettes™ per run. Each facility can be incubated or frozen and features programmable light exposure controls and optimized imaging access for direct sample comparison. Designed for efficient sample removal and replacement workflows and optical spectrometry.
Use cases: seed germination studies, microbial growth analysis, phenotyping, comparative plant research, light response experiments, algal growth studies, multi-time point sampling
Photo: Rhodium Science TempLog™ co-located with Rhodium Science Chambers™ aboard the ISS
Rhodium Science TempLog™ (RhST-4RAD) — Temperature and Radiation Logging
This passive temperature and radiation logger is designed to operate co-located with samples, providing unprecedented continuous thermal and radiation exposure history throughout the payload mission.
Use cases: thermal exposure tracking, incubation verification, preservation validation, and experiment correlation, radiation impact studies, biological response correlation, materials testing, and mission environmental characterization
FAQ
Contact
To discuss fit, sample formats, timelines, and mission integration:
LEO.Life@RhodiumScientific.com