With NASA planning to decommission the International Space Station around 2030, a new generation of commercial and hybrid orbital platforms is in the making. At the Paris Air Show, key players VAST, The Exploration Company (Nyx), Alatyr, and Andromach showcased their solutions, from compact capsules to full-fledged orbital habitats.
After more than two decades of continuous service in space, the International Space Station is nearing the end of its operational life. NASA and its international partners have announced that the ISS will be deorbited by 2030, opening up a significant gap in access to low Earth orbit (LEO) infrastructure. With scientific research, in-orbit manufacturing, and commercial missions increasingly dependent on microgravity platforms, the pressure is on to build the next generation of orbital outposts.
Rather than a single successor, what is emerging is a diverse ecosystem of commercial space stations and orbital vehicles. Each target specific niches, from human habitation and science to rapid testing, cargo return, and in-space assembly. Governments, space agencies, and private investors are closely watching these developments as they seek reliable, sovereign, and cost-effective platforms for the post-ISS era.
At the 2025 Paris Air Show, several ambitious startups presented their visions for the future of orbital platforms. Here are four key players to watch in the coming space station race:
1/ VAST – Haven‑1 & Haven‑2: The First Commercial Space Station
California-based VAST is on target to launch Haven‑1, a cylindrical orbital module for up to four crew, via a SpaceX Falcon 9 in 2025. It’s designed as a proof-of-concept “revenue-generating space station” and stepping stone toward NASA’s Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) program.
Their next milestone, Haven‑2, is a modular expansion set to launch by 2028 pending CLD backing, offering increased volume, robotic arms, a cupola, and artificial gravity potential .
Franco‑German startup The Exploration Company is developing Nyx, a reusable modular spacecraft set to launch cargo—and eventually people—to LEO and beyond. Its initial mission: cargo delivery for ESA and DLR, with a future crewed variant by mid‑2030s. Nyx supports up to 4–5 astronauts or 1,400 kg unpressurized cargo; it’s open-architecture, green-propellant, and Euro-developed. At Le Bourget, The Exploration Company emphasized European autonomy in orbital logistics.
Read our full report
3/ Alatyr – Robotic Space Station for Microgravity Research
Parisian newcomer Alatyr is aiming to fill the post‐ISS demand for microgravity labs. Their crew‑free station combines pressurized core and unpressurized logistics pods, robotic arms for container docking and autonomous R&D, as well as onboard analytics and remote-control interface.
It is expected to launch by 2028–29 via European micro‑launcher, with a 1–1.5 tonne, annually resupplied mini‑station.
Designed for biotech and life‑science experiments, Alatyr’s model includes institutional and private sector clients, underlining Europe’s sovereign R&D path.
Read our full report
4/ Andromach – Suborbital Shuttle Paving the Way to Mini Orbital Vehicles
French startup Andromach targets the nascent market for reusable, cost‐effective access to microgravity with their Envol suborbital drone—and later, their Étoile micro‑shuttle.
Envol launches on runway, uses turbojet to climb, then switches to hybrid rocket mode for ~5 minutes microgravity, before fully reusable return. Built‑in propulsion and adaptive nozzle tech (patented), with CNES-supported engine tests summer 2025. European-made components ensure ITAR-free, sovereign systems.
The next step? A full mini‑shuttle to orbit carrying 100 kg payloads and returning to Earth.
“We assemble proven tech into something that doesn’t yet exist… even the US or China don’t have a commercial equivalent,” co‑founder Hugo Verjus told DirectIndustry at Paris Air Show.
July’s full Moon rises tonight, providing moongazers and photographers with the chance to observe and capture our planet’s natural satellite looking big, bright and beautiful.
And as it happens, the Royal Observatory Greenwich has just released a selection of beautiful Moon images – which you can see here – as part of the 2025 shortlist for one of the biggest astrophotography competitions in the world.
Want to enter your Moon images into next year’s competition?
ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year is an annual competition that celebrates images of the night sky captured by photographers around the world.
Now in its 17th year, APY is the biggest astrophotography competition on the planet.
It welcomes images in multiple categories including Aurorae, People and Space, Galaxies, Our Sun and Our Moon.
And it’s the latter category that’s caught our eye this week, as the 2025 shortlisted images are released just as we’re preparing for July’s low-hanging ‘Buck Moon’ to rise above the southern horizon.
The ‘Buck Moon’ is so-called because it’s the full Moon in July, and July is the time of year when male deer – bucks – grow their antlers.
It’s one of many nicknames attributed to the monthly full Moons that reflect big changes in nature at the time of the month in question.
The Buck Moon is one of the lowest full Moons of the year, barely rising above the southern horizon, and this is because it’s in the opposite part of the sky to the Sun.
It being around the time of the summer solstice, the Sun is particularly high, and so the Moon is particularly low.
The Buck Moon is also the farthest full Moon from the Sun of the year, and this is because Earth has just reached aphelion, which is the time when our planet is farthest from the Sun in its orbit.
Because the Buck Moon is so low, you may notice it looking slightly orange or red-coloured, and also the effect of the Moon illusion, which is when a low-lying full Moon looks strangely enormous.
Find out more about the competition by visiting the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year website or following Royal Museums Greenwich on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Newswise — Miniature Underwater Robots (MURs) are revolutionizing how humans explore aquatic environments. However, achieving efficient propulsion in highly resistive underwater conditions remains a formidable challenge. Unlike aerial and terrestrial robots, MURs operate in a medium with significant drag forces, making propulsion efficiency a primary concern.
Propulsion mechanisms are categorized into conventional approaches, such as propellers and jet propulsion, and bio-inspired methods that mimic marine organisms’ swimming patterns. While conventional propulsion systems are well-established, they often struggle with miniaturization and energy efficiency. In contrast, bio-inspired propulsion techniques—including fish-like undulatory motion and jellyfish-like pulsation—offer enhanced maneuverability, stealth, and energy efficiency. The development of soft-bodied actuators and shape-adaptive propulsors has opened new possibilities, enabling robots to adapt more effectively to dynamic environments. Recent advances in soft robotics have facilitated the integration of compliant materials, making bio-inspired designs an attractive alternative to traditional propulsion systems.
Despite recent advancements, several key challenges persist. Miniaturizing actuation systems without compromising power output remains a significant hurdle, as smaller robots have limited onboard energy storage capacity. Additionally, energy efficiency is a critical bottleneck, since underwater robots often operate in environments where recharging or refueling is impractical. This constraint has driven research into ultra-low-power actuators and innovative energy-harvesting technologies. Another major challenge lies in achieving precise control and stable locomotion in unpredictable underwater currents, which can introduce disturbances that affect navigation accuracy. To overcome these issues, researchers are exploring advanced control strategies, including reinforcement learning-based adaptive control and distributed swarm intelligence, enabling MURs to operate autonomously in complex environments.
The study identifies several promising directions for future MUR research. The integration of artificial intelligence and real-time environmental perception is expected to significantly enhance autonomy, allowing robots to make intelligent navigation decisions without human intervention. AI-driven motion planning algorithms could enable MURs to optimize their trajectories while minimizing energy consumption. Additionally, advancements in soft robotics and biohybrid actuation may lead to robots that seamlessly adapt to varying underwater conditions, mimicking marine organisms with unprecedented fluidity. These developments could also facilitate swarm robotics, where multiple MURs coordinate for collective exploration and monitoring.
Beyond marine exploration, MURs have vast potential applications in environmental monitoring, underwater infrastructure inspection, and even biomedical fields such as targeted drug delivery in aquatic environments. Their ability to maneuver in confined spaces makes them well-suited for pipeline inspection, ship hull maintenance, and deep-sea ecological surveys. As demand grows for compact, efficient, and intelligent underwater robots, further innovations in actuation mechanisms and control strategies will drive the field forward.
This research provides a comprehensive review of actuation methods, categorizing and evaluating various propulsion techniques used in MURs while highlighting their advantages, limitations, and potential for future development. It also analyzes emerging trends in soft-bodied actuators and biohybrid swimming mechanisms, demonstrating their potential for improving energy efficiency and adaptability. Furthermore, it outlines key challenges in miniaturization, power efficiency, and control, offering valuable insights into future research directions that could revolutionize underwater robotics.
The advancements in miniature underwater robot technologies pave the way for innovative applications across marine science, industry, and healthcare. By integrating soft robotics, AI-driven control, and energy-efficient propulsion systems, researchers aim to develop next-generation MURs capable of autonomous operation in complex underwater environments. These robots could play a transformative role in protecting marine ecosystems, assisting in search-and-rescue missions, and improving underwater infrastructure maintenance—ultimately reshaping how humans interact with and explore the underwater world.
The paper “Actuation and Locomotion of Miniature Underwater Robots: A Survey,” authored by Panbing Wang, Xinyu Liu, and Aiguo Song. Full text of the open access paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eng.2024.10.022. For more information about the Engineering, follow us on X (https://twitter.com/EngineeringJrnl) & like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringJrnl).
When a ripe fruit of the Mediterranean squirting cucumber (Ecballium elaterium) finally bursts, the show is over in a blink – unless you film it at 10,000 frames per second.
A new study from the Department of Functional Morphology and Biomechanics at Kiel University, Germany, used precisely that technology along with high-resolution X-ray micro-tomography.
The research reveals how the plant primes itself for one of the most spectacular examples of self-propelled seed dispersal in the plant kingdom.
Why the squirting cucumber explodes
Plants that deposit seeds right beneath a parent’s canopy face stiff competition for light, water, and nutrients. Evolution favors strategies that spread offspring widely – by wind, animals, or, in rare cases, by brute force.
The squirting cucumber belongs to that small third category. Once its water-rich fruit has matured, internal pressure builds up. It then suddenly ejects a viscous jet containing up to 30 seeds, launching them away at startling speed.
“Many factors have to interact perfectly to disperse the seeds in the most efficient way, while not destroying the whole plant too early,” said project leader Helen Gorges, a PhD student at Kiel.
Untangling those factors was the goal of the research she presented this week at the Society for Experimental Biology annual meeting in Antwerp, Belgium.
Cucumber ripening mapped in 3D
The Kiel team began by scanning intact fruits with micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) to build three-dimensional models of the internal anatomy.
Progressive scans taken during ripening charted how the tissues transformed from a firm, green cylinder into a biological pressure vessel poised to rupture.
Complementary micro-CT imaging of exploded fruit captured the aftermath in equally fine detail. This allowed the researchers to calculate how tissues deformed and ruptured in the millisecond before detonation.
Parallel high-speed videography supplied the missing frames. “We recorded the explosion of the fruit with high-speed videos at 1,000 fps and 10,000 fps to calculate the speed of the seeds and the possible shooting distances,” Gorges said.
Those recordings showed individual cucumber seeds rocketing out of the ruptured end at up to 29 miles per hour (about 13 m/s) before gravity began to tug them earthward.
Fruit aims before exploding
Classical ballistics dictates that, for any projectile launched from ground level, an angle of 45° maximizes horizontal distance – assuming no air resistance.
Because seeds leave a height above ground and endure aerodynamic drag, the optimum tilt is a little steeper.
Field measurements revealed over the final days of ripening, the fruit’s short stalk gradually straightened until the fruit nodded at 53° relative to horizontal. This angle is almost exactly the theoretical optimum of 50°, calculated for Ecballium’s seed mass and exit velocity.
“We also analyzed pictures during the ripening of the fruits to measure the curvature of the fruit stem and the angle between fruit and stem,” Gorges noted.
This revealed that the plant actively remodels its pedicel tissues so that when the moment comes, it fires each capsule along a near-perfect ballistic trajectory.
Cucumber seeds exit with precision
High-speed footage further showed that the seeds of the squirting cucumber depart in an orderly orientation, always exiting point-first from the fruit’s basal end. That consistency may reduce drag and help minimize collisions among seeds in the gushing stream.
Once they land, another adaptation takes over: the seed coat produces a mucilaginous hydrogel that becomes glue-like as it dries.
The sticky coating helps seeds adhere to soil particles, reducing the chance they will be washed away. It may also improve local moisture retention – both advantages for germination in the cucumber’s typically arid habitat.
Fruit as a pressure bomb
Internal pressure estimates derived from micro-CT density measurements confirm that the fruit behaves like a hydraulic accumulator. Water drawn from the parent plant inflates internal cavities while secondary cell-wall thickening stiffens the outer rind.
When tension surpasses tissue strength, the weakest seam near the stalk splits like a pre-scored rupture disk. The accumulated pressure then drives the surrounding gel and embedded cucumber seeds through the opening in a fraction of a second.
“It’s super interesting to watch the explosions through high-speed recordings, as the explosions happen way too fast to see anything in real time,” Gorges said.
The 10,000 fps clips compress a chaotic spray into graceful arcs, letting the researchers trace individual seeds out to distances of 12 meters (39 feet) – an impressive range for an object smaller than a rice grain.
Inspiration for soft robotics
Translating nature’s launchers into human technology is a growing pursuit in soft robotics and medical engineering.
In the cucumber, the driving energy is stored in a water-rich gel, a concept that might underpin future hydrogel-based actuators for microsurgery or targeted drug delivery.
“There are also many applications in soft robotics, drug delivery systems, and similar devices, where energy-efficient launching systems are desired,” Gorges explained.
Mimicking the fruit’s composite rind or its self-sealing hydrogel could yield actuators that store elastic or hydraulic energy safely until a precise trigger releases it.
Nature’s launch system perfected
From stem straightening that fine-tunes launch angle to seed coatings that assist germination, Ecballium elaterium exemplifies how evolution can weave multiple traits into an integrated dispersal weapon.
By combining high-speed imaging with X-ray tomography, the Kiel group has mapped those traits from the cellular to the ecological scale. Their findings illuminate not just an evolutionary curiosity.
The researchers also offer a blueprint that engineers may soon tap to build miniature devices capable of their own rapid-fire feats.
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Daniel Zafra @capturetheatlas (used with permission)
The Royal Observatory Greenwich has unveiled the shortlisted images for the annual ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year, which celebrates the best space photography from around the world. The entries feature the spectacular displays of aurora in 2024, the Milky Way, stunning star trails, total solar eclipses and the moon.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich reports that it had over 5,500 entries from 69 countries for what is generally agreed to be the most prestigious astrophotography competition. The overall winner, who will receive $13,600, will be announced on Thursday, Sept. 11, along with the winners of the competition’s other nine categories and two special prizes.
The winning photographs will be showcased at the National Maritime Museum, close to the Royal Observatory Greenwich, from Sept. 12. “This competition is a tribute to those who turn their eyes to the stars and share what they see with the world,” said Sam Wen, Founder and CEO of ZWO, the competition’s sponsor.
A solitary dragon tree stands tall in the heart of Socotra’s Dragon Blood Tree forest, Yemen.
Benjamin Barakat (used with permission)
A Dragon Tree Trail In Yemen
One of the most striking images is this one above, of a Dragon Tree on the island of Socotra, Yemen. It was taken by Benjamin Barakat while in the heart of Socotra’s Dragon Blood Tree forest in March 2024. Another standout is the main image at the top of this article, of the Northern Lights over Mono Lake, California. It was shot by Dan Zafra at CaptureTheAtlas.com, who was shortlisted in 2022 and won the people’s choice category. “This photograph captures the rare occurrence of Northern Lights in California,” he says. “Vibrant ribbons of magenta and green light up the sky, reflecting in the still waters among the rock formations.” The shot was taken on Oct. 10, 2024, one of the three strongest displays of aurora in 2024.
The full Moon rising above the rugged peaks of the Dolomites. With no clouds in sight and in … More flawless conditions, the golden light of sunset bathes the mountains, creating harmony between Earth and sky.
Fabian Dalpiaz (used with permission)
The Full Moon
The shortlist contains multiple images of the moon. Above is the full moon rising above the rugged peaks of the Dolomites in Italy. Shot in perfect conditions, the golden light of sunset bathes the mountains, and the timing of the shot is exquisite. Photographer Fabian Dalpiaz calls this shot “Moonrise Perfection Over the Dolomites.” There are other images of the moon — another moonrise, one of the International Space Station appears to transit its disk and another of a moon-Saturn occultation.
The Beaver Moon was the last supermoon of 2024. This photograph was taken from the hazy, Bortle 9 … More skies of Delhi. The full-disc mosaic is composed of 24 images then stitched together to create a seamless mosaic.
Karthik Easvur (used with permission)
The ‘Mineral Moon’
The “Mineral Moon” Photographer Karthik Easvur took the image, above, of November 2024’s beaver moon — the year’s last supermoon — while in Delhi, India. It was created by first taking hundreds of images and stacking them together, drawing out faint color differences during processing — particularly titanium (blue) and iron (orange and brown). While you can’t see these colors with the naked eye, they’re based on real data and give valuable insight into the moon’s composition and geological history.
Below is another standout Milky Way image, taken by photographer Yujie Zhang in August 2024 while in Songyang County, China. It shows several black geometric buildings appearing to stand on the water’s surface.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich is home to Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian, an imaginary line of longitude, designated as 0 degrees that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole. The Prime Meridian — which divides the western and eastern hemispheres of the world — is marked as a line on the floor of its courtyard on a hill in Greenwich Park in southeast London, overlooking the River Thames.
The first state-funded, purpose-built scientific institution in the U.K., in 2025, it’s marking 350 years since its foundation in 1675. It was set up by King Charles II to help with astronomy and navigation in an era of European exploration and increasing international trade.
BEIJING, July 10 (Xinhua) — A team of Chinese geologists has created a Mars soil simulant that almost replicates Utopia Planitia soil, a scientific breakthrough that could be crucial for future explorations of the planet, including China’s ambitious Mars sample-return mission.
The simulant, coded UPRS-1, comes very close to replicating the physical, chemical, spectral and mechanical properties of Martian soil based on in-situ data obtained by China’s Mars rover Zhurong of the Tianwen-1 Mission and NASA’s Viking-2 lander, both of which landed in the Utopia Planitia region.
Published in the planetary science journal Icarus, this breakthrough fills a gap in space exploration research by providing a soil simulant for Mars’ northern lowlands — an area previously overlooked in developing simulants, which focused on the southern highlands.
Utopia Planitia, a massive impact basin with a diameter of approximately 3,300 km, where China’s Zhurong rover touched down in 2021, is a geologically significant region on Mars that may hold evidence of the planet’s watery past.
An interdisciplinary research team from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, including Li Shouding, Li Juan and Lin Honglei, analyzed data from Zhurong’s suite of instruments, which detected hydrated minerals like gypsum and clays, that are telltale signs of past liquid water activity and which make this region of Mars particularly valuable for study.
To recreate the unique soil composition in this region, the team employed an innovative approach — combining geological expertise with planetary science.
They started with crushed basalt from east China’s Shandong Province as the base material, and then precisely blended in a specific formula of minerals, according to the study.
After this step, the mixture underwent analysis and adjustments to replicate the spectral, physical, mechanical and chemical properties of soil found at Utopia Planitia on Mars. The simulant shows an overall similarity of 86.1 percent in numerous properties compared with the actual regolith at Utopia Planitia.
The team subjected UPRS-1 to precise testing to ensure its mechanical properties replicate the critical parameters of soil on Mars, which will help engineers design more robust landers and rovers for future missions.
UPRS-1 is designed to address a long-standing challenge in space exploration that came into focus following the soil-drilling difficulties encountered by NASA’s InSight mission in 2020.
The simulant opens new avenues for research into in-situ resource utilization, allowing scientists to develop and test technologies for extracting water from Martian soil — a capability necessary for sustaining future human outposts on Mars.
UPRS-1, notably, can offer a vital testing ground for mission components and sampling techniques as China prepares for its Tianwen-3 sample-return mission, set to launch around 2028, the paper’s first author Diao Yiming from the IGG, told Xinhua.
In terms of science, it can serve as material for use in Martian environment simulation experiments, with applications in astrobiology, such as investigating the effects of clay minerals and sulfates on microbial survival, the research team explained.
Also, the team proposed an evaluation procedure that could facilitate the design and creation of new high-similarity simulants applicable to other regions on Mars. ■
This year’s Venice Architecture Biennale introduced a first: the Universe Pavilion, a space-themed exhibition exploring how we might live beyond Earth.
Designed by leading artists and thinkers from the German and Italian space sectors, the pavilion challenged traditional national showcases. It offered a timely reflection on a fast-growing idea: that space, like climate, transcends borders and that architecture might be one of our most potent tools in confronting both.
The Venice biennale is often considered the world’s most prestigious architecture exhibition. While not part of the official programme, the inclusion of the Universe Pavilion marked the first time space entered the architectural mainstream in such a high-profile setting – a signal that new frontiers are becoming future concerns.
Among those contributing to the broader momentum in space architecture were three architects whose careers collectively trace the evolution of European and transatlantic thinking in this still-nascent discipline: Dr Barbara Imhof, Michael Morris and Orla Punch.
Imhof and her firm presented Building With and Living Off Lunar Resources, a concept exploring how to construct habitats on the Moon using solar-sintered lunar dust.
Solar sintering uses concentrated sunlight to fuse lunar soil into solid building components, reducing the need to transport materials from Earth. “You transport machines, not materials,” Imhof explained. “You use what’s there.”
Space architecture demands a radical rethinking of how we build. It is not just about surviving in extreme environments; it is about recreating conditions for life where they naturally do not exist.
As Imhof noted, “Low Earth orbit, where the International Space Station sits, is orbiting 450 kilometres above us. The Moon is 1,000 times farther. It may seem easy to imagine travelling there because of the Apollo missions. But, honestly, we have to start from scratch.”
Imhof is one of Europe’s leading voices in space architecture. She co-founded Liquifer Systems Group in Vienna in 2004 and currently lectures at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Her practice spans lunar design, analogue simulations and bio-integrated habitats. She has played a central role in the European Space Agency’s contribution to the Gateway, a new lunar outpost.
Gateway, led by Nasa in collaboration with ESA; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, is planned to orbit the Moon as a staging point for lunar missions and deep space exploration.
ESA is contributing two key elements to the Gateway: the International Habitat (I-Hab), which will house up to four astronauts for missions lasting 30 days, and the Esprit module, which will offer refuelling capabilities and advanced telecommunications.
The I-Hab is scheduled to launch in 2028 as part of the Artemis programme, Nasa’s multinational initiative to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era.
“We’ve been working on I-Hab for five or six years,” Imhof explained. “It’s just three metres in diameter and six metres long. Every element of the design has been optimised for microgravity and safety.”
Yet the Artemis programme itself faces uncertainty. Changes in US political leadership could delay or alter its course. “No one knows what’s happening,” Imhof said. “If they cancel or delay Artemis elements, everything downstream is affected, including I-Hab.”
Even so, she believes Europe’s contributions – from communications systems to refuelling infrastructure – are essential and must be protected through long-term funding and policy commitments.
Much of the required technology is still under development. “We’re at technology readiness level five or six,” Imhof added. “This means that the project is still in its testing and laboratory phase. It takes years and considerable resources to reach TRL 9, which signifies that the system is fully tested and proven for flight operations. If politics keeps shifting, we won’t make it.”
The challenges are real. But the lessons drawn from designing for space have profound implications for Earth. “To build sustainably on Earth, we need to use local materials, reuse rubble and minimise transport emissions,” said Imhof. “That’s what space architecture teaches us because in space, we have no choice.”
This ethos also shaped the work of Michael Morris, an Irish-American architect who, with his wife Yoshiko Sato, co-founded the New York-based Morris Sato Studio.
Together, they launched SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture), a practice dedicated exclusively to off-world habitat design.
Morris, whose family hails from Mayo and Roscommon, has often spoke of pride in his Irish heritage, crediting it with shaping his outlook as an architect drawn to storytelling, endurance and imagination.
“Designing for space strips architecture back to a core question: how do we survive?” Morris said. “You can’t take anything for granted. That mindset is invaluable as we confront climate change and resource scarcity on Earth.”
Mars ice house: a habitat for four crew members, developed by highlighting 3D printing techniques and using material indigenous to Mars. Photograph: Michael Morris
Morris and Sato viewed space architecture not as a novelty but as a means to advance the discipline. Their work earned top honours in Nasa’s Centennial Challenge for a Mars habitat design in 2015.
A generation behind Morris and Imhof, Irish architect Orla Punch is an emerging talent in the field. In 2015, as a final-year architecture student at the University of Limerick, she designed a Martian habitat. She earned the department’s prestigious gold medal, awarded to the top student in the degree programme.
It was the first time a space-based project had earned such recognition in the school’s history, marking her as a breakout talent in the discipline. Punch then completed postgraduate training at the International Space University in Strasbourg before joining the ESA’s astronaut centre in Cologne, Germany.
There, she contributed to research under the mentorship of ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and scientist Dr Aidan Cowley as part of the Spaceship EAC project, exploring topics ranging from lunar energy systems to astronaut wellbeing and modular habitat designs.
“I was always interested in human space exploration,” Punch said. “Humans cannot survive beyond Earth without some version of a home. That idea fascinated me psychologically, materially, and environmentally.”
Today, she is an associate partner in San Francisco at Foster+Partners, a global architectural firm known for iconic buildings and pioneering space design including the Gherkin in London and Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. The firm has collaborated with ESA on lunar habitat concepts and designed the Virgin Galactic terminal and hangar facility within Spaceport America in New Mexico.
In March, Foster+Partners showcased its off-world design work at the Earth to Space exhibition at Washington’s Kennedy Centre, featuring 3D-printed structures and models that link space research with sustainability on Earth.
While Punch’s work at Foster+Partners currently focuses on Earth-based dwellings, she continues to draw inspiration from space architecture. “Designing for space stretches my thinking,” she said. “And every project has the potential to change how we live, up there and down here.”
Together, these three architects offer a portrait of a discipline still in formation, one that is not yet codified or widely taught but growing in urgency and influence. In space, every drop of water counts, and so it should be on Earth. Techniques such as solar sintering, closed-loop life support systems and rubble reuse are already being integrated into sustainable building practices here at home.
At the Venice Biennale, the Universe Pavilion offered a timely reflection on this very idea. While not an official national pavilion, its inclusion signals a growing recognition that space, like climate, transcends borders.
Its creators hope that one day, the Biennale will formally include a Universe pavilion alongside national showcases. Because if space belongs to all of us, architecture may be the tool through which we shape that shared future.
And perhaps, just perhaps, these designs, once imagined for lunar soil and Martian dust, may teach us how to build better here on Earth, before it’s too late.
SYDNEY, July 10 (Xinhua) — Australian scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a synthetic protein that kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria like E. coli.
This marks the first time an Australian team has generated a ready-to-use biological protein using AI, placing them alongside countries like the United States and China in rapidly generating thousands of proteins for faster, more affordable drug development and diagnostics, the Melbourne-based Monash University said on Thursday.
The team developed the AI Protein Design Platform using advanced AI-driven tools, including recently developed software to rapidly create custom proteins for pharmaceutical and diagnostic applications, said a Monash University statement.
“Using these tools and those we are developing in-house, we can engineer proteins to bind a specific target site or ligand, as inhibitors, agonists or antagonists, or engineered enzymes with improved activity and stability,” said Daniel Fox, the study’s lead author and PhD student at Monash University.
The study, published in Nature Communications, pointed out that AI has reduced protein engineering from decades to seconds, speeding up the development of treatments for infections, cancer, snakebites, and other conditions.
The Australian platform is modeled on pioneering work by American biochemist and Nobel laureate David Baker, enabling the creation of entirely new proteins designed for specific tasks, according to Rhys Grinter from Monash University, the study’s co-lead author.
This innovation is expected to accelerate drug discovery, reduce costs, and provide new solutions to antibiotic resistance, Grinter said. Enditem
SYDNEY, July 10 (Xinhua) — Australian scientists have used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a synthetic protein that kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria like E. coli.
This marks the first time an Australian team has generated a ready-to-use biological protein using AI, placing them alongside countries like the United States and China in rapidly generating thousands of proteins for faster, more affordable drug development and diagnostics, the Melbourne-based Monash University said on Thursday.
The team developed the AI Protein Design Platform using advanced AI-driven tools, including recently developed software to rapidly create custom proteins for pharmaceutical and diagnostic applications, said a Monash University statement.
“Using these tools and those we are developing in-house, we can engineer proteins to bind a specific target site or ligand, as inhibitors, agonists or antagonists, or engineered enzymes with improved activity and stability,” said Daniel Fox, the study’s lead author and PhD student at Monash University.
The study, published in Nature Communications, pointed out that AI has reduced protein engineering from decades to seconds, speeding up the development of treatments for infections, cancer, snakebites, and other conditions.
The Australian platform is modeled on pioneering work by American biochemist and Nobel laureate David Baker, enabling the creation of entirely new proteins designed for specific tasks, according to Rhys Grinter from Monash University, the study’s co-lead author.
This innovation is expected to accelerate drug discovery, reduce costs, and provide new solutions to antibiotic resistance, Grinter said. ■
