The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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To provide astronauts with nutritious food for long-term space missions it will become more and more important to be able to culture food in space. For protein sources, such as meat, cellular agriculture may provide the solution to producing food in situ without the need of animals. Muscle stem cells are painlessly extracted from an animal, then inserted into a bioreactor that provides the required biochemical and mechanical stimuli for the cells to proliferate. The cells then differentiate to form small muscle fibres, which are then ‘assembled’ to form, for example, a meat burger. Technologies developed for space applications in turn can then be used on Earth to help reduce the impact on our planet.
ESA is seeking proposals to investigate the application of cellular agriculture as a novel technique to produce food, in particular cultured meat, during future long-term space missions.