Sep 24 – Twyman Clements, Space Tango

Twyman Clements is co-founder and president of Space Tango, a Lexington-based company working to transform microgravity into a practical environment for research and manufacturing. In his leadership role, Clements works alongside the company’s CEO to develop and deliver automated products that operate in low-Earth orbit and other off-Earth environments.

Clements’ connection to the space industry began at the University of Kentucky, where he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering. While at UK, he began developing the original product architecture that ultimately helped shape Space Tango. He later served as a senior space systems engineer at Kentucky Space, designing high-altitude balloons, CubeSats, and hardware for the International Space Station.

Space Tango was created to simplify and expand access to space-based research and manufacturing. The company installed its first permanent facility aboard the International Space Station in 2016 and has since broadened its capabilities to support missions in low-Earth orbit, lunar environments, and beyond. Its automated systems allow researchers to conduct experiments with little or no astronaut involvement, reducing mission risk and accelerating the path from an initial concept to an operational project in space.

The company’s work is based on a simple but powerful idea: Gravity influences the behavior of cells, chemicals, and materials on Earth. Removing that influence can reveal possibilities that traditional laboratories cannot reproduce. Space Tango’s platforms support research in areas including disease modeling, drug development and discovery, regenerative medicine, materials and biomanufacturing, plant science, and fundamental science. The goal is to turn discoveries made in space into scalable applications that improve life on Earth.

Among the company’s technologies are Mambo, a large-volume platform for complex experiments and continuous manufacturing in orbit; PAUL, a powered ascent platform designed to protect biological materials and collect critical data from launch through docking; and Studio, an automated laboratory featuring robotic handling, advanced imaging, and a controlled environment. Studio can be reprogrammed while in orbit, allowing researchers to update protocols without relying on crew time or waiting for hardware to return to Earth.

Clements has earned national and statewide recognition for his work. He was named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2018 and was inducted into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. Under his leadership, Space Tango has worked with Fortune 500 companies, startups, research foundations, and academic institutions to make space-based research faster, more accessible, and more useful. His career also highlights Kentucky’s growing role in the commercial space economy, demonstrating that groundbreaking aerospace innovation can be developed in Lexington and carried into orbit around Earth and beyond.

Rotary in Review
Local Company, Big Orbit: Space Tango’s Expanding Mission

Twyman Clements, co-founder and president of Lexington-based Space Tango, began his presentation by explaining how the company is expanding from research aboard the International Space Station (ISS) into deep-space missions and future commercial space manufacturing.

Space Tango employs approximately 40 people, primarily in Lexington, and has completed more than 300 International Space Station missions. Most employees are graduates of the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Morehead State University, and Western Kentucky University. Clements described Space Tango’s growth as the result of long-term support from Kentucky’s higher education institutions, state government, and the University of Kentucky’s College of Engineering.

The company’s work was represented on the Artemis II mission through a biomedical experiment studying human health during deep-space travel. Clements emphasized Space Tango’s role in demonstrating that Kentucky can support globally significant space companies.

Space Tango enables research and manufacturing in microgravity, where the absence of buoyancy, sedimentation, convection, and hydrostatic pressure changes physical and biological processes. The company automates terrestrial scientific protocols for operation aboard the ISS and remotely monitors and controls experiments from its Lexington office. Key applications include brain organoids for accelerated research into neurodegenerative diseases, retinal implants, nerve-growth scaffolds, tissue chips, plant science, and thin-film manufacturing. Clements noted that medical and pharmaceutical applications currently offer the strongest commercial potential for space-based manufacturing.

Headquartered near Winchester Road, Space Tango is expanding into a larger facility at Greyline Station that will accommodate manufacturing, mission operations, engineering, and design. The first phase of the Greyline Station expansion is complete, and additional facilities are under construction.

The ISS is scheduled to be deorbited around 2030, although that could occur in 2033 or 2034. Space Tango is exploring opportunities involving future commercial space stations and reentry vehicles that could operate as small orbital factories and return manufactured products to Earth.

Clements identified volumetric efficiency—the effective use of available space—as a key constraint because current ISS equipment devotes substantial space to structures, circuit boards, safety systems, and power systems. Space Tango’s longer-term objective is to improve payload efficiency and establish economically viable space-based production.

Clements encourages students and aspiring entrepreneurs to take calculated risks, noting that Space Tango developed through experimentation, persistence, and an initial willingness to pursue an unconventional path.

Chris Kimel, co-founder of Space Tango, introduced Clements. Kimel recently launched Kentucky Space Futures to help grow Kentucky’s space industry and expand its participation in the global economy. The organization will host a space summit in Lexington on November 13, bringing together participants from across the state.

— Jim Richardson