At Orius, we create custom and unique botanical ingredients for the beauty and health industries. We explore plant metabolic pathways to understand why and how plants produce molecules of interest, and we design cultivation technologies and systems that ensure efficient, compliant, and fully traceable production.

We also operate a biological R&D service and a design office that tackle technical and agronomic challenges across multiple applications.

Today, we would like to take you on a journey through our space projects. 🌱🚀.

Orius and space

We have been working on space applications from the very beginning of our adventure. We established a strategic partnership with CNES — the French space agency — and developed New Space projects focused on biological research and engineering.

Our projects have two main objectives:

• To develop cultivation protocols that will nourish astronauts in future space bases, optimizing both the nutritional value and chemical composition of plants.
• To design technologies that will make plant cultivation possible in future inhabited bases on the Moon or Mars.

To support future lunar and Martian bases, we must consider multiple factors, including resource optimization, design compliance with space standards, the impact of gravity, and many others.

This article will focus on one specific aspect: gravity. We will present Gravilab, the gravity simulator developed by Orius, designed to study plants under conditions of microgravity and partial gravity.

What is gravity?

Gravity (or gravitational interaction) is the force that attracts two masses toward each other.

The greater and denser the mass, the stronger its gravitational force. On a planet, this force produces what is called gravitational acceleration (g), expressed in meters per second squared (m/s²).

As shown in this table (1), Earth has a stronger gravitational pull than Mars or the Moon.

This difference has very tangible effects. We all remember images of astronauts on the Moon or aboard the ISS, appearing to float. On the Moon, their slow and bouncing walk is directly related to low gravity: their weight is reduced to one-sixth of what it would be on Earth. As a result, they can jump higher, move more easily, and lift heavy objects effortlessly than on our planet.

The impact of gravity on plant development

Gravity plays a crucial role in plant growth and development, influencing their orientation, morphology, and physiological mechanisms.

Gravitropism: plants' natural compass

Plants use gravity to orient their growth 🧭🌿 — a phenomenon called gravitropism.

Roots grow downward (positive gravitropism) and stems grow upward (negative gravitropism), against the force of gravity. Plants can perceive and adjust their growth direction according to gravitational forces.

The causal relationship between gravity and plant organ orientation was demonstrated by Knight's 1806 experiment (2), where seedlings placed on a rotating drum bent their stems toward the axis of rotation and their roots away from it. The drum rotation mimicked gravity-like physical properties and revealed an active plant response to gravity.

What happens in microgravity?

In the absence of gravity — as in space — roots no longer systematically grow downward; their growth becomes random. But the effects don't stop there.

Microgravity — a condition where gravitational forces are extremely weak, near zero — disrupts the transport of key phytohormones, including auxins and cytokinins, essential for plant growth. This hormonal imbalance triggers a generalized stress response, leading to an alteration of the cell cycle.

Specifically, cell proliferation accelerates, but at the expense of cell size: seedlings have more but smaller cells. Microgravity also disrupts cell structures that are critical for maintaining cell shape and growth

In summary, these disruptions slow down the overall growth of young plants in microgravity.

A cultivation environment that requires adaptation

Another major consequence that we need to consider : without gravity, natural gas convection ceases. On Earth, air circulation occurs naturally: warm air goes up and cool air goes down. In microgravity, this mechanism breaks down : the air stays still— air no longer rises or falls because there’s no weight difference between hot and cold air. 

As a result, moisture and gases accumulate around plants, hindering gas exchange and respiration. Without careful control (ventilation, humidity regulation, air renewal), key plant life stages — such as maturation and reproduction — may be impaired or even halted.

Why develop a gravity simulator at Orius?

Gravilab, the A-RPM developed by Orius

Gravilab is an A-RPM (Advanced Random Positioning Machine): a gravity and partial gravity simulator designed and developed by Orius. As previously mentioned, gravity has a significant impact on plant development.

If we aim to cultivate plants to nourish future space bases, we must understand all its effects on our target crops.

Orius designed its own gravity simulator to conduct precise research with varying gravity parameters, on entire plants, with the ability to monitor lighting and irrigation, similar to our terrestrial cultivation units.

Existing tools like clinostats simulate gravity across two dimensions, using a single rotation axis. Orius' Gravilab is a 3-dimensional random positioning machine, with two axes rotating randomly. 2D clinostats can create experimental artifacts, as plants can "adapt" to a simple two-dimensional rotation, whereas this would not happen under real microgravity conditions. With two rotating axes, Gravilab provides a more accurate simulation of true gravity conditions. 

Furthermore, we called Gravilab an "advanced" random positioning machine because it can simulate gravity levels between 0 and 1G, covering conditions aboard the ISS as well as on the Moon or Mars. 

Unlike clinostats, typically designed for small samples (Petri dishes or test tubes), Gravilab allows the cultivation of entire plants over several weeks, enabling observation of the full phenological development — roots, foliage, etc. — at a realistic scale.

Anas Rais, engineer at Orius, and Pierre Jay, co-founder, explain some technical challenges faced during Gravilab’s development:

“The first challenge, specific to whole-plant cultivation, was to design an optimal irrigation system within a rotating device, avoiding leaks and water splashes that could damage equipment or bias water measurements - a crucial input for future space bases where this resource is scarce.

The second challenge was maintaining the plant in place without excessively constraining it. We developed a custom “support pot” that integrates both the irrigation system and a rock wool substrate, ensuring a stable growth environment.

We also developed dedicated software to control the movement of the two rotation axes precisely, ensuring stable and reproducible simulated gravity without bias.

To enhance observation and analysis, we made the system modular, allowing the integration of accessories like microscopes, cameras, and sensors for real-time data collection. Gravilab can also be rescaled — larger or smaller — without a complete redesign, making it adaptable to a wide variety of experimental contexts.”

Orius' gravity and microgravity research

For the past two months, Orius' R&D teams have been using our in-house gravity simulator, Gravilab, for initial experiments.

Nathan Fouere Klein, PhD student at Orius and the Museum of Natural History, and Dr. Pierre-François Pluchon, microbiologist at Orius, explain how this innovative tool is being used.

"Studying how plants respond to the absence of gravity will help us anticipate potential negative effects on future plant cultivation in space habitats.

With our simulator, we can validate and optimize cultivation protocols specifically adapted to these new conditions.

It also allows us to test inducers — chemical, physical, or biological agents that activate specific metabolic pathways — to stimulate the production of secondary metabolites and molecules of interest for both terrestrial and space environments.

Our first tests were conducted on Japanese mustard greens (Brassica rapa var. japonica, also known as Mizuna), cultivated under altered gravity conditions. Mizuna was chosen for its rapid growth, compact form, strong stress tolerance, high nutritional value, and low resource needs — ideal for space farming.

Our first experiments tracked the plant’s full development cycle, with a near 100% germination rate. We identified an ideal substrate for Mizuna growth in Gravilab and conducted precise measurements of water needs at different growth stages."

Expanding the potential of the Gravilab

The Gravilab was designed to offer great flexibility and adapt to a wide range of applications: plants, cells, fish, bacteria, or yeast, with minimal adjustments mainly concerning sample mounting and environmental controls (water, oxygen, nutrients, temperature).

The rotation control system precisely adjusts to the payload, ensuring stable simulated gravity, regardless of sample mass or size.

This flexibility enables a broad range of biological studies while maintaining accurate simulated gravity conditions.

Conclusion

Space projects challenge us to overcome new technological obstacles, advance scientific research, and rethink resource usage — both for space exploration and innovative solutions on Earth.

We extend our sincere thanks to CNES and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, with whom we are conducting joint biological studies — particularly focusing on gravity's effects on plants.

This interdisciplinary and collaborative collaboration opens up exciting opportunities, allowing us to push the boundaries of research, both in space and on Earth.

Bibliography

(1) https://cnes.fr/dossiers/planete-mars ; https://cnes.fr/dossiers/lune

(2) A. Knight (1806) On the direction of the radicle and germen during the vegetation of seeds By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. In a letter to the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, K. B. P. R. S. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1806.0006

(3) De micco et al. (2013) Microgravity effects on different stages of higher plant life cycle. Plant biology. 16:31-38. doi:10.1111/plb.12098

 (4) Medina FJ, Manzano A, Villacampa A, Ciska M and Herranz R (2021) Understanding Reduced Gravity Effects on Early Plant Development Before Attempting Life-Support Farming in the Moon and Mars. Front. Astron. Space Sci. 8:729154. doi: 10.3389/fspas.2021.729154