Houston space health institute to launch more experiments into space on upcoming mission

ready for takeoff

Here's what experiments TRISH is launching aboard Axiom Space's next mission. Photo via NASA

Houston's Translational Research Institute for Space Health, or TRISH, will launch six more experiments into space this spring aboard Axiom Space's Ax-2 mission, the organization announced this week.

The biomedical research conducted through TRISH, in consortium with CalTeach and MIT, will look into how space travel impacts everything from motion sickness to memory over the course of the mission's 10-day stint on the International Space Station.

The crew will consist of four astronauts: Commander Peggy Whitson (previously with NASA), Pilot John Shoffner and Mission Specialists Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi. It's a historic team, bringing the first female private space crew commander and the first Saudi astronauts to the ISS.

“Insights gathered from this work improve our understanding of how the human body and mind respond to spaceflight, helping us to prepare future astronauts to remain safe and healthy during longer-duration missions," Dr. Dorit Donoviel, TRISH executive director and professor in the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, says in a statement.

The six projects onboard the mission have been developed by researchers within TRISH as well as the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University and Baylor College of Medicine. They aim to assess the following:

  • Spaceflight participants’ performance in memory, abstraction, spatial orientation, emotion recognition, risk decision making and sustained attention before and after the mission -Astronauts’ inner ears and eyes' response to motion before and after space travel and how this relates to motion sickness and nausea during launch and landing
  • The effects of spaceflight on the human body at the genomic level
  • Changes to the eyes and brain during spaceflight
  • Astronaut's sleep, personality, health history, team dynamics and immune-related symptoms
  • Sensorimotor abilities and changes in space and how this can impact astronauts' ability to stand, balance and have full body control on the moon

Some of this information will become part of TRISH’s Enhancing eXploration Platforms and ANalog Definition, or EXPAND, program, which aims to boost human health on commercial space flights through its database. The program launched in 2021.

Ax-2 is Axiom's second all-private astronaut mission to the ISS and will launch out of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Axiom was first established in 2016 with the goal of building the world's first commercial space station.

TRISH is also slated to launch nine experiments on board SpaceX's Polaris Dawn mission, which is now expected to launch this summer. The research aboard Polaris Dawn is intended to complement research supported by TRISH on the Inspiration4 all-civilian mission to orbit, which was also operated by SpaceX in 2021.

Axiom Space has announced plans for its third commercial space launch and revealed details of its high-tech spacesuit. Photo courtesy of NASA

Houston space tech company secures third NASA mission, reveals new spacesuits

ready for liftoff

A Houston-based space tech company has revealed details on two of its commercial partnerships with NASA.

NASA and Axiom Space have again signed a mission order for a private astronaut mission to the International Space Station. The mission will commence sometime in November or on and will be from the agency’s NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Axiom Mission 3 is the third mission of its kind and, according to a statement from NASA, is expected to be a 14-day trip.

The ISS's Multilateral Crew Operations Panel will approve four proposed crew members and two back up crew submitted by Axiom for the Ax-3 mission. The crew will be expected to train for their flight with NASA, international partners, and SpaceX beginning this spring, according to NASA.

“Axiom Space’s selection to lead the next private astronaut mission to the International Space Station enables us to continue expanding access to nations, academia, commercial entities, and emerging industries to research, test, and demonstrate new technologies in microgravity,” says Michael Suffredini, CEO and president of Axiom Space, in the release. “As NASA’s focus shifts back to the Moon and on to Mars, we are committed to transforming low-Earth orbit into a global space marketplace, where access to space moves beyond the partners of the space station to nations, institutions and individuals with new ideas fueling a thriving human economy beyond Earth.”

Axiom's historic first commercial launch was in spring of 2022, and Ax-2, which will launch the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS, is expected to launch this spring. In addition to these two missions, Axiom has been tasked by NASA to develop spacesuits and space station technology.

After several months of working on the suits, Axiom has revealed the details of the technology that will be worn by NASA astronauts returning to the moon on the Artemis III mission that's scheduled to land near the lunar south pole in 2025.

The newly revealed spacesuit will be worn by the first woman and first person of color to visit the moon. Photo courtesy of Axiom Space

“We’re carrying on NASA’s legacy by designing an advanced spacesuit that will allow astronauts to operate safely and effectively on the Moon,” says Suffredini in a statement from the company. “Axiom Space’s Artemis III spacesuit will be ready to meet the complex challenges of the lunar south pole and help grow our understanding of the Moon in order to enable a long-term presence there.”

Called the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, the prototype was revealed at Space Center Houston’s Moon 2 Mars Festival today, March 15. According to Axiom, a full fleet of training spacesuits will be delivered to NASA by late this summer.

At the same time as the Ax-3 mission announcement, NASA also announced that it has selected Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, to carry multiple payloads to the far side of the Moon. According to NASA, the commercial lander will deliver two agency payloads, as well as communication and data relay satellite for lunar orbit, which is an European Space Agency collaboration with NASA.

The contract — awarded for around $112 million — is targeted to launch in 2026 through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative, and part of the agency’s Artemis program. It's the second award to Firefly under the CLPS initiative.

“The diversity of currently available commercial orbital human spaceflight opportunities is truly astounding. NASA’s commercial crew flights to the space station for our government astronauts paved the way for fully private missions to space like Inspiration4 and Polaris as well as private astronaut missions to the orbiting laboratory like the one we are announcing today,” says Phil McAlister, director of commercial space at NASA Headquarters in Washington, in the release. “We are starting to see the incorporation of space into our economic sphere, and it is going to revolutionize the way people see, use, and experience space.”

Axiom Space has announced its crew for its second commercial space launch. Image via Axiom

Houston space company announces historic flight crew

ready for liftoff

A Houston-based company is making history with its next commercial flight mission.

Axiom Space announced that Axiom Mission 2, or Ax-2, the second all-private mission to the International Space Station, will have members of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's national astronaut program aboard. It will also be the first private mission commanded by a woman: Peggy Whitson, Axiom's director of human spaceflight and former NASA astronaut.

“Axiom Space’s second private astronaut mission to the International Space Station cements our mission of expanding access to space worldwide and supporting the growth of the low-Earth orbit economy as we build Axiom Station,” says Michael Suffredini, president and CEO of Axiom Space, in a news release. “Ax-2 moves Axiom Space one step closer toward the realization of a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit and enables us to build on the legacy and achievements of the ISS, leveraging the benefits of microgravity to better life on Earth.”

Expected to launch this spring, it's the second ISS mission for the commercial aerospace company founded in 2016. Ax-2 Mission Specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi will be the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS after Axiom and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia reached an agreement in 2022. With this mission, KSA will become only the sixth country to have two astronauts working on the ISS at the same time.

“This flight is an integral milestone of a comprehensive program aiming to train and qualify experienced Saudis to undertake human spaceflight, conduct scientific experiments, participate in international research, and future space-related missions contributing to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030,” reads a statement from the country.

Pilot John Shoffner, a businessman and aviator from Knoxville, Tennessee, with over 8,500 hours of flying under his belt, is the crew's fourth and final member.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Ax-2 crew aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the ISS from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and they will spend 10 days on the mission. The mission is targeted for launch in the spring of 2023, and will be the first private space mission to include both private astronauts and astronauts representing foreign governments.

Whitson, a Rice university alum, will add to her deep resume, which also includes adding even more space time to the standing record for the longest cumulative time of any astronaut in the history of the U.S. space program.

“I am honored and excited to lead the Ax-2 crew and mission,” Whitson says in a statement. “The space station is a vital platform for all types of research. We at Axiom Space are committed to working with NASA to open the door for private citizens to contribute to and advance the groundbreaking research aboard the station, forging the path for us to operate, live and work abroad Axiom Station.”

Axiom aims to build its own commercial space station to launch in late 2025. Axiom’s first mission completed last April, and the company, deemed a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation, has raised $200 million, including a $130 million series B round in 2021.

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Generation Park lands new facility to scale xeno-organ production

Organ innovation

Maryland-based United Therapeutics Corp. has opened a new 77,448-square-foot facility to manufacture xeno-organs in Northeast Houston’s growing biotech hub, Generation Park.

The new Houston location is United Therapeutics’ third Designated Pathogen-Free (DPF) site, named for transplant pioneers Dr. Bartley P. Griffith and Dr. Robert A. Montgomery. The company says the new facility will enable it to scale commercial production of its xeno-organs once they receive regulatory approval.

An existing DPF facility in Virginia is supporting clinical trials for the xeno-organs, and a third site in Minnesota will also focus on commercialization with the Houston site, according to the company.

Xeno-organs are organs taken from a non-human animal source and transplanted, implanted or infused into a human recipient.

Currently, United Therapeutics is advancing clinical trials to support a Biologics License Application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its investigational-stage xenotransplantation, UKidney, UThymoKidney and UHeart products. The products all involve working with the genes from humans and pigs.

In 2025, Chron.com reported the company was working to construct an estimated $96 million facility to breed genetically engineered animals. Head of investor relations at United Therapeutics Dewey Steadman told the Houston Business Journal in 2025 that the pigs’ DNA will be edited. In November 2024, a 53-year-old woman in Alabama received a transplanted kidney from UKidney that had 10 gene edits. She had the transplant removed in April 2025, after her body rejected it.

The Dr. Bartley P. Griffith and Dr. Robert A. Montgomery Xenograft Production Facility requires a “strictly controlled, biosecure barrier environment, including air filtration, filtered water, filtered feed supplies, and state-of-the-art decontamination entryways,” according to the company. Being pathogen-free means it includes calibrated air and water conduits to support the transplantability of xenograft products and to prevent contamination. For energy considerations, the building also features solar arrays.

“With our third xenograft production facility now open and clinical trials underway, United Therapeutics is moving closer to its goal of providing transplantable organs to the people who need them,” Martine Rothblatt, chairperson and CEO of United Therapeutics, said in a news release. “It is fitting that this facility is named for Dr. Griffith and Dr. Montgomery, whose first-in-human surgeries turned xenotransplantation from a theoretical possibility into a clinical reality.”

The facility, which wrapped construction in August, is located at 11848 Common Dock Dr. in Generation Park, which will house manufacturing sites for pharmaceutical heavyweights Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly. Last fall, Eli Lilly tapped Generation Park for its $6.5 billion manufacturing plant, and Bristol Myers Squibb made a $2.3 billion investment in August to bring its state-of-the-art site to the master-planned commercial district.

Elon Musk's SpaceX reports profit as AI and satellite businesses booms

Booming Business

SpaceX reported a bigger quarterly profit than expected on Tuesday, October 20, as its satellite communications and artificial intelligence businesses boomed.

The company, run by Elon Musk, posted a profit for the three months through September 2026 of $4.4 billion, or 35 cents per share, reversing a year-ago loss and easily topping Wall Street's expectations. Revenue soared to $14.6 billion, up 161%.

On a conference call with analysts, Musk suggested a merger with his electric car company Tesla might be in the works, something that has been rumored for months. He said both companies formed “special committees” of independent directors to discuss the issue, though he played down the chances of an imminent deal.

“Some people out there assume that a SpaceX and Tesla merger is a certainty,” he said. “I think that would be overstating it.”

The AI business became SpaceX's largest by revenue in the third quarter, although the Starlink satellite service remains the biggest profit generator.

“They beat across all metrics and the Starlink business looks to be accelerating,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Yorkville Ives. “This is just what (Wall) Street wanted.”

The stock rose 7.5% in after-hours trading.

Musk also told analysts that for next month's launch of its Starship rocket, SpaceX will attempt to grab both the booster and ship with mechanical arms upon return to base, a key step toward demonstrating it can reuse the massive spacecraft.

“The only way that we can extend consciousness beyond Earth on a sustained basis is with a fully reusable orbital launch vehicle,” Musk said, calling the attempt, if successful, “a massive technology milestone.”

SpaceX hopes to get Starship on a regular launch pattern in preparation for NASA's upcoming lunar missions.

The company already has huge contracts with the federal government, and House Democrats have called for investigations into those contracts and Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk has spent $276 million since July in support of Republican candidates.

In a filing for its initial public offering in June, SpaceX warned that a change in control of Congress could have a “material and adverse impact on our growth and competitive position.”

Musk recently drew criticism from politicians in Washington after speeds for a military version of SpaceX's satellite communications service were slowed for Ukraine following President Donald Trump's deal to get more diesel oil from Russia amid a push to end the war. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that it was Musk who ordered the slowdown, impeding Ukraine’s use of drones along the front. SpaceX did not immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment on the Journal story.

Both Trump and Musk have denied responsibility for the slowdown.

As midterm elections near, Musk on Monday promised to give one share of SpaceX to “every kid in America” next year, though he provided no details on how the distribution would be carried out. With communities nationwide protesting the construction of large data centers and concerns about AI safety, AI companies are trying to build goodwill. Anthropic pledged to commit 5% of its shares to a new “public benefit” fund.

SpaceX shares have been under pressure over concerns that the company was spending too much on major projects to compete with rivals such as Anthropic. The company said capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion last quarter, nearly triple the figure from a year earlier, and it forecast spending would grow to $35 billion to $40 billion in the current quarter.

Shares of SpaceX closed Tuesday at $147.79, down from a peak near $201 after its IPO, which made Musk the world’s first trillionaire at the time. But the share prices for SpaceX and Tesla have since dropped, reducing his net worth to $925 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Tesla reports third-quarter financial results Wednesday. Last week, Tesla unveiled a new Roadster sports car that in some versions may include thrusters allowing it to briefly fly using SpaceX technology — though experts say anything usable for drivers is a long shot.

These 5 trailblazing Houston startups are leading the energy transition

meet the finalists

Houston is home to a growing number of startups reshaping what it means to be called the "Energy Capital of the World."

As part of the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, our Energy Transition Business category honors those innovative startups that are providing solutions within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy and more.

Five clean energy startups have been named finalists for the 2026 award. The finalists, selected by our esteemed panel of judges, range from a lower-emission steel producer to a diagnostics platform developer working to support batteries used in data centers.

Read more about these innovative businesses, their initiatives, and their inspirational founders below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Capwell Services

Methane capture company Capwell Services works to eliminate vented oil and gas emissions economically for operators. According to the company, methane emissions are vented from most oil and gas facilities due to safety protocols, and operators are not able to capture the gas cost-effectively, leading operators to emit more than 14 million metric tons of methane per year in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2022, Capwell specializes in low and intermittent flow vents for methane capture.

The company began as a University of Pennsylvania senior design project led by CEO Andrew Lane. It has since participated in programs with Greentown Labs, the Rice Clean Energy Accelerator and the Creative Destruction Lab Energy Cohort at Texas A&M University. The company moved to Houston in 2023 and raised a pre-seed round. It deployed two commercial units this year, according to its application.

FlowCellutions

Energytech startup FlowCellutions is developing a chemistry-agnostic diagnostics platform for flow and metal-air batteries supporting data centers and critical infrastructure. The platform is designed to help reduce operating costs, prevent failures and costly downtime, and extend battery lifetime from approximately seven years to more than 30 years. It has deployed four paid pilots and plans to take insights from the programs to develop its next-gen sensor platform technology.

CEO Becca Segel founded the company in 2022. It is a member of Greentown Labs, and Segel was a 2025 Activate Fellow. The company has raised over $2 million in non-dilutive funding and received a $1.5 million NSF SBIR Fast-Track award earlier this year.

Hertha Metals

Hertha Metals produces lower-cost, lower-emission steel and high-purity iron. The company has developed a single-step process that uses natural gas as a direct reductant instead of metallurgical coal, which cuts production costs by more than 25 percent and emissions by up to 50 percent, according to the company. The same process produces high-purity iron needed for high-purity steels and rare earth magnets. The company says it aims to "re-industrialize America’s production of critical materials."

Hertha Metals was founded by CEO Laureen Meroueh in 2022 and emerged from stealth last year with more than $17 million in venture capital funding. The company closed a $133.65 million Series A this month and also broke ground on its $100M high-purity iron factory known as Chalyx in Conroe.

Mars Materials

Clean chemical manufacturing business Mars Materials is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. The company develops and produces its drop-in chemical products in Houston and uses an in-licensed process for the National Renewable Energy Lab to produce acrylonitrile, which is used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubbers.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Aaron Fitzgerald, CTO Kristian Gubsch, and vice president of operations Trey Sheridan, the company has secured over $7.2M in financing and is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Shell, Black & Veatch, and other organizations. It won in the Minority-founded Business Category in last year's Houston Innovation Awards.

Solidec

Chemical manufacturing company Solidec has developed autonomous generators that extract molecules from water and air and convert them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions on-site, eliminating the need for transport, storage, and permitting. The company was founded around innovations developed by Rice University associate professor Haotian Wang.

The company was selected for the Chevron Technology Ventures’ Catalyst Program, Greentown Labs, NSF I-Corps and was part of the first cohort of the Activate Houston program. It won first place at the 2024 startup pitch competition at CERAWeek. Solidec was founded in 2023 by Wang, who serves as an advisor, CEO Ryan DuChanois, and CTO Yang Xia. It closed a $2.5 million seed round in 2025.

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