Why Microgravity Helps Crystals Grow Better

What’s the Big Deal About Crystals in Space?

Protein crystals are used in everything from pharmaceuticals to food chemistry to structural biology. But growing high-quality crystals on Earth is hard. Gravity introduces:

• Sedimentation
• Convection currents
• Impurities moving toward the growing surface

In microgravity? Those forces vanish or are drastically reduced.

This makes space an incredibly clean, slow-growth environment that’s perfect for:

• Uniform, well-defined crystal shapes
• Higher-resolution X-ray diffraction
• Discovery of previously uncrystallizable molecules

Microgravity = Crystallization’s Secret Weapon

Professor Anne Wilson and her team at Butler University analyzed over 350 experiments in the Butler Microgravity Protein Crystal Database (BμCDB). Their findings?

In total, 92% of microgravity-grown crystals improved in at least one metric compared to their Earth-grown counterparts.

What Actually Improves?

• Size: Crystals grow larger, sometimes 1000x compared to Earth
• Shape: Smoother edges, fewer defects
• Clarity: More optically pure
• Resolution: Up to 0.30–0.42 Å improvement in diffraction
• Mosaicity: Tighter internal structure = better precision

Even better? No correlation between success and protein size, symmetry, or subunits. Microgravity helps across the board.

Why Does This Happen?

• No sedimentation = fewer impurities incorporated into the growing crystal
• No convection = nutrients diffuse gently and evenly
• Microgravity = a stable diffusion-limited environment

This means molecules have time and space to align properly—like a slow-motion puzzle coming together perfectly.

What Are These Crystals Used For?

• Pharma: Better structure → better drug targeting
• Food chemistry: Chocolate, ice cream, texture modulation
• Cosmetics: Controlling color and sheen
• Structural biology: Understanding enzymes, viruses, molecular machines

Crystals grown in space have already been used to improve hepatitis C treatments and we’re just scratching the surface.

How Spark Gravity Connects to This

Right now, most microgravity crystal growth happens on the ISS which brings long delays, limited launches, and huge paperwork hurdles.

At Spark Gravity, we want to:

• Help researchers test crystallization profiles on Earth first
• Simulate partial gravity environments like Mars or the Moon
• Eventually create modular microgravity platforms that bring protein R&D closer to Earth orbit—and make it faster to iterate

Whether it’s growing better crystals or discovering new ones, our job is to make programmable gravity research more accessible.

Want to Go Deeper?

• Dr. Anne Wilson’s 2024 Study (BμCDB)
• NASA: Crystallizing Proteins in Space Helping to Identify Potential Treatments for Diseases
• USA’s NIH: Microgravity protein crystallization
• Coming soon: “How We’ll Build a Desktop Crystal Gravity Rig” →