Scientists on the International Space Station quietly experimented on something that might determine the breakfast of future Mars crews, and it involves the same blue-green algae that can be found in your pantry. According to a 2025 DLR press release, scientists report that they were able to cultivate the cyanobacterium Limnospira indica (aka spirulina) continuously in the space environment on the ISS, where it produced oxygen and harvestable biomass. The (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) or German Aerospace Center experiment, known as Arthrospira-C, is a crucial step towards growing food and breathable air in space without having to ship all the calories from Earth.
Meet the microbe doing double duty in orbit
While spirulina may not be a novel find in the healthy food section, its role in space is lesser known. It is a photosynthetic organism; it consumes CO₂ and light, and produces oxygen as a byproduct like a plant, but it is also a single-celled microbe that can grow rapidly and provide a high nutritional content. That's the very reason that space agencies are coming back to it: one organism, two jobs, minimal footprint.
