Highlights

  • Sierra Space, a Colorado-based private aerospace and space technologies company, turned to ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s College of Medicine for its expertise in aerospace medicine with the donation of its cargo module, once housed at Kennedy Space Center.

  • The rare piece of technology will become a major asset for ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s emerging aerospace medicine program, which is exploring how space flight impacts the human body and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention for patients on Earth.

  • ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ will use the module to give students and faculty precise training to address medical events in the confines of a spacecraft and will also enable researchers to create technologies for improving payloads and establishing protocols to send materials into the tight spaces of intergalactic travel.

Landing humans on the moon was just a dream when ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ was founded in 1963. But we dared to believe β€” developing the talent and inventing the technologies to make it reality. That same spirit still drives us today.

We are America’s Space University. And we celebrate ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Space Week to honor our origin as we dare to build what’s next.

ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ student adjusts equipment on a large telescope at night, surrounded by cables and machinery, with a starry sky in the background.
ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Space Week Oct. 25-30, 2026

Where Global Leaders Unite to Forge the Future of Space

A space capsule is becoming the ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ College of Medicine’s newest classroom and research lab.

Sierra Space, a Colorado-based private aerospace and defense technologies company, donated the 22-foot-long life-sized model of their Shooting Star cargo module, which is capable of delivering supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

A white cone-shaped craft with the words "Sierra Space" displayed on the body of the structure
The model of the Sierra Space Shooting Star cargo module will soon be a unique, interactive classroom and research facility at the ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ College of Medicine. (Photo by Eddy Duryea ’13β€―)

The gift recognizes ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s reputation as America’s Space University and the medical school’s emerging aerospace medicine program, which is exploring how space flight impacts the human body and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention for patients on Earth.

The model was housed at Kennedy Space Center β€” located roughly 30 miles from ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s campus β€” where it was used as a design reference for engineers and a training tool for in-space cargo transfer. The module attaches to a Sierra Space Dream Chaser spaceplane and in the future could potentially to deliver up to 12,000 pounds of cargo, including science experiments, research equipment and medical supplies to space stations.

The mockup is almost identical to a real module with a hatch that docks with the spacecraft and a section of storage lockers that hold resupply materials.

β€œThere’s only a handful of ships that can take payloads to low Earth orbit,” says Emmanuel Urquieta, the College of Medicine’s vice chair for aerospace medicine and director of ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s new Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (). β€œThis module is a true-to-size mock-up that is fully aligned with what will actually fly into space.”

An Asian man with cropped, gray hair and brunette woman lay on stomachs, propped on their elbows, in long metal chamber
The module is almost identical to what actually will fly in space and will allow ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ students and faculty to better understand the logistics and practicalities of maintaining the health of space travelers. (Photo courtesy of Sierra Space)

Dedicated to Keeping Space Travelers Healthy

CASEEM is a multidisciplinary center that includes ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ faculty experts in medicine, engineering, computer science, psychology, arts and educational leadership who will work together to research and develop new technologies for keeping space travelers healthy as well as soldiers on military missions, deep sea explorers and mountain climbers.

ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ will use the module to give students and faculty precise training to address medical events in the confines of a spacecraft.

The model also will help researchers create technologies for improving payloads and establishing protocols to send materials into the tight spaces of intergalactic travel. Such technologies and strategies also could be used in combat zones, on submarines and in remote and isolated areas of Earth, Urquieta says.

β€œIt is a rare piece of technology that the ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Aerospace Medicine program is privileged to use for research.” β€” Ed Powers, CASEEM’s medical director

β€œThis module brings human spaceflight to life for students and researchers at ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½,” says William (Ed) Powers, CASEEM’s medical director, who worked as director of flight medicine for Axiom Space and chief of NASA’s Medical Operations Branch before joining ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½. β€œIt is a rare piece of technology that the ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ Aerospace Medicine program is privileged to use for research.”

The university is working to create a location for the module.

The donated module grew out of a longstanding professional relationship between aerospace medicine faculty members with Tom Marshburn, chief astronaut and vice president of programs at Sierra Space. Marshburn spent 28 years at NASA, where he was on three space flights and served as medical operations lead for the International Space Station.

β€œSierra Space is proud to support the ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½β€™s College of Medicine and its aerospace medicine program by providing our life-size mockup of our Dream Chaser cargo module,” Marshburn says. β€œHumans will interface with the actual Dream Chaser spaceplane and its cargo module when it arrives at the ISS or a commercial LEO destination, and we look forward to working with ΒιΆΉΣ³»­΄«Γ½ medical students, physicians and faculty on the insights the mockup vehicle can provide for human factors studies, in aerospace and mechanical engineering, and in potential space medical capabilities.”