Space BD

Recognized under Tier 9 — Extraterrestrial Healthcare, Space BD is a Japanese space-services company that has served as JAXA's commercial partner for access to the ISS "Kibo" module since 2018, arranging protein crystallization and drug-discovery experiments for research and commercial clients. In April 2025 the company completed its sixth life-science mission using Kibo, launched aboard NASA's SpX-32 Commercial Resupply Services flight, bringing its cumulative total to roughly 540 academic research samples and 37 commercial samples flown to the space station. Space BD functions as a logistics and integration layer rather than a research lab itself, packaging payloads, managing launch logistics, and returning samples for JAXA-funded investigators and private biotech clients. By lowering the operational barrier to running biomedical experiments in microgravity, Space BD's payload pipeline is part of the infrastructure that will need to scale substantially for the kind of sustained in-space pharmaceutical and tissue research a Mars-bound biomedical program would require.