World Space Week 2026: microbes at the frontier of space exploration

06 October, 2026

This week is World Space Week, a reminder of how space science and technology improve life on Earth. This year’s theme, “Rocket Revolution”, highlights the innovations taking us into space. At MEGBLab, we are looking at the microbes that may travel with us, support future missions or challenge planetary protection.

Together with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, our team helped describe 26 new bacterial species from the Kennedy Space Center cleanroom where NASA assembled the Phoenix Mars Lander in 2007. Many carry genes associated with resistance to cleaning agents, biofilm formation, DNA repair and spore formation (Schultz et al., 2025). These traits help explain how microbes persist in places designed to eliminate them, and why understanding them matters for preventing the contamination of other worlds.

To test their limits, we will use our Planetary Simulation Chamber here at KAUST’s MEGBLab. The chamber is specially configured for experiments with biological samples, allowing us to study how microbes survive and respond to Mars-like conditions, including low pressure, a CO₂-rich atmosphere, radiation and extreme temperature changes. We can also use it to investigate extremophilic microbes we have isolated from Saudi Arabia. There is still so much to learn from life thriving in extreme environments here on Earth.

(MEGB Lab Planetary Simulation Chamber)

 

To celebrate this week, the Saudi Space Agency and King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) are hosting “Explore Space” at The Wadi in Riyadh, from 4 to 10 October. If you are in Riyadh, take the opportunity to visit and learn more about the Kingdom’s growing space activities. More information is available on the Saudi Space Agency website.

Students interested in visiting our Planetary Simulation Chamber are welcome to contact us!