Bioprinted in Orbit: Auxilium Prints the First Kidney and Liver Tissue Aboard the ISS

Key takeaways

Auxilium Biotechnologies bioprinted kidney and liver tissue aboard the International Space Station — the first time either tissue type has been manufactured in orbit.
The same run also produced cartilage and 28 nerve-repair implants, making it the first mission to print three distinct tissue types and implantable devices on a single flight.
Everything was made on the company’s AMP-1 platform during Mission AXLM-3, which launched on SpaceX-34 and splashed down off California on June 17, 2026.
Microgravity is the point: with no gravity to collapse soft tissue, the printer can build the hollow, channelled geometries that kidney and liver actually need.
Cells and tissue designs came from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine; Auxilium is already lining up Vast and Starlab for life after the ISS.

Bioprinting a kidney is hard enough on a lab bench. Doing it 400 kilometres up, in a box the size of a shoebox, is a different order of problem — and Auxilium Biotechnologies says it has now done it. The clinical-stage company has confirmed that its AMP-1 platform bioprinted kidney and liver tissue aboard the International Space Station, the first time either organ tissue has been manufactured in orbit, according to reporting from 3D Printing Industry and the company’s own announcement.

What actually flew

The tissue was produced during Mission AXLM-3, which rode up on SpaceX-34 and splashed down off the California coast on June 17, 2026. Kidney and liver were the headline, but they were not the whole cargo: the AMP-1 platform also turned out cartilage and 28 nerve-repair implants in the same window. Auxilium frames that mix as two firsts at once — the first time three distinct tissue types have been manufactured on a single spaceflight, and the first time one manufacturing platform has produced both living tissue and implantable medical devices on the same trip.

The biological heavy lifting was shared. The kidney and liver constructs used cells and tissue designs from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), with Auxilium supplying the orbital hardware and the printing know-how. “Producing multiple tissue types alongside dozens of implants in a single mission” is a step toward “routine manufacturing operations in orbit,” said Isac Lazarovits, the company’s VP of Engineering — a deliberately unglamorous way of describing something no one had done before.

Why orbit, and why these organs

Kidney and liver are a harder ask than the vascular tubes and nerve conduits earlier orbital missions have printed, because both organs are riddled with internal channels — voids, cavities and tunnels that let blood and fluid move through them. Print those structures on Earth and gravity fights you: soft, un-set tissue slumps under its own weight before it can hold a shape. In microgravity that force simply isn’t there, so a bioprinted construct can take on far more complex geometry without collapsing. As VoxelMatters notes, that is precisely the property that makes space an attractive factory floor for organ tissue rather than just a novelty.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. WFIRM sent 3D printed liver tissue to the ISS back in August 2025 to study how microgravity affects the growth and stability of organ constructs, building on its work in NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge, where vascularised tissue survived up to 30 days under lab conditions. Dr. Anthony Atala, WFIRM’s director, said the uniform cell distribution the team achieved aboard the station “points to real possibilities for manufacturing medical devices and tissues in space.”

The bigger play: a factory that outlives the ISS

The interesting part for anyone watching additive manufacturing is less the biology and more the trajectory. Auxilium is openly trying to move from one-off demonstrations to a platform that makes many tissue and device types per flight. An earlier AMP-1 deployment printed eight medical devices in roughly two hours, a run CEO Jacob Koffler flagged as a milestone at the time. This mission scaled that to 28 implants plus three tissue types.

With the ISS heading toward retirement, the company says it is already working with commercial-station developers Vast and Starlab on future orbital manufacturing, and is developing hardware aimed at lunar and deep-space missions where resupply isn’t an option. There’s a nearer-term hook, too: organoids — the small 3D tissue models used to study disease and screen drugs — are currently made on Earth and shipped up. With the US FDA listing organoids among its New Approach Methodologies for reducing animal testing, a reliable way to make them in orbit has an obvious market. The mission drew support from BioServe Space Technologies, Space Tango and NASA’s InSPA program.

None of this means a printed transplant kidney is close — these are research-scale constructs, not organs bound for an operating theatre. But “we can build organ tissue with the right internal plumbing, off-planet, at increasing volume” is a new sentence to be able to write, and it nudges bioprinting a little further from lab curiosity toward manufacturing discipline.

FAQ

What did Auxilium Biotechnologies bioprint in space?

Kidney and liver tissue — the first time either has been manufactured in orbit — along with cartilage and 28 nerve-repair implants, all on its AMP-1 platform aboard the ISS.

Why is it easier to bioprint organ tissue in microgravity?

Kidney and liver contain internal channels and cavities. On Earth, gravity makes soft, un-set tissue collapse before it sets. In microgravity there’s no such force, so the printer can build hollow, complex geometries that hold their shape.

Does this mean 3D printed transplant organs are coming soon?

No. These are research-scale tissue constructs, not transplant-ready organs. The milestone matters because it proves complex organ tissue can be manufactured off-planet and at growing volume, not because a printed kidney is ready for surgery.

When did the mission take place?

The tissue was made during Mission AXLM-3, which launched on SpaceX-34 and splashed down off the California coast on June 17, 2026. Auxilium confirmed the results publicly on July 9, 2026.