The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to grow “Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures.” Their value proposition lies in the potential for drastic reduction in the amount of upmass or volume launched from Earth.

Given recent advances in metabolic engineering for rapid growth, extremophiles with novel properties, biological self-assembly properties of tunable materials, and emergent mechanical design principles of biological systems, DARPA is interested in exploring the feasibility of “growing” biological structures of unprecedented size in microgravity. Rapid, controlled, directional growth to create very large (500+ meter length) useful space structures would disrupt the current state-of-the-art and position biology as a complimentary component of the in-space assembly infrastructure. Some examples of structures that could be biologically manufactured and assembled, but that may be infeasible to produce traditionally, include tethers for a space elevator, grid-nets for orbital debris remediation, kilometer-scale interferometers for radio science, new selfassembled wings of a commercial space station for hosting additional payloads, or on-demand production of patch materials to adhere and repair micrometeorite damage.

Space manufacturing is already in the works. In 2022, DARPA launched the Novel Orbital Moon Manufacturing, Materials, and Mass-Efficient Design (NOM4D) program to explore the use of lightweight raw materials that can be transformed and assembled once they reach orbit. This strategy could enable the construction of structures far larger and more efficient than anything that could be launched fully assembled from Earth. NOM4D is now in its third and final phase: Manufacturing experiment will move from the lab to in-orbit evaluation.

DARPA has been exploring the increasingly dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences for years. The Biological Technologies Office (BTO) was created on April 2024.

Biology is nature’s ultimate innovator, and any agency that hangs its hat on innovation would be foolish not to look to this master of networked complexity for inspiration and solutions.

DARPA’s new project wants to take advantage of recent develpments in synthetic biology, materials science, and the capabilities of extremophiles, to engineer biological objects “of unprecedented size” in microgravity. There are plenty of technical challenges, e.g.:

A key unknown in creating such bio-mechanical structures in space is how the structure would be assembled. Feedstock must be provided (and relocated if necessary) to the growing edge, or to the area from which biological materials are being extruded.

DARPA is calling for proposals to address development pathways: use case, co-engineering, feedstock, value proposition and proof-of-concept experiments. Experts will debate ideas in a workshop in April.

If you are still thinking that humans and mechanical humanoid robots are all about the conquest of space, maybe this announcement is a good opportunity to have a second thought.

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Featured Image: Lexica Art