A Rapid Fabrication Methodology for Payload Modules, Piloted for the Observation of Queen Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) in Microgravity

Microgravity experiment modules for living organisms have been instrumental to space research, yet their design remains complex and costly. As the private space sector enables more widely available payloads for researchers, it is increasingly necessary to design experimental modules innovatively so that they are proportionately accessible. To ease this bottleneck, we developed a rapid fabrication methodology for producing custom modules compatible with commercial payload slots. Our method creates a unified housing geometry, based on a given component layout, which is fabricated in a digital design and subtractive manufacturing process from a single lightweight foam material. This module design demonstrated a 25–50% reduction in chassis weight compared with existing models, and is extremely competitive in manufacturing time, simplicity, and cost. To demonstrate the ability to capture data on previously limited areas of space biology, we apply this methodology to create an autonomous, video-enabled module for sensing and observing queen and retinue bees aboard the Blue Origin New Shepard 11 (NS-11) suborbital flight. To explore whether spaceflight impacts queen fitness, results used high-definition visual data enabled by the module's compact build to analyze queen-worker regulation under microgravity stress (n = 2, with controls). Overall, this generalizable method for constructing experimental modules provides wider accessibility to space research and new data on honey bee behavior in microgravity.