BioSentinel is a lowcost CubeSat spacecraft on a astrobiology mission that will use budding yeast to detect, measure, and compare the impact of deep space radiation on DNA repair over long time beyond low Earth orbit.

BioSentinel is one of ten low-cost CubeSat missions that flew as secondary payloads aboard Artemis 1, the first test flight of NASA's Space Launch System.

[6] The spacecraft was deployed in cis-lunar space as NASA's first mission to send living organisms beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

[3][4] The BioSentinel biosensor uses the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to detect and measure DNA damage response after exposure to the deep space radiation environment.

[1][4] After completing the Moon flyby and spacecraft checkout, the science mission phase will begin with the wetting of the first set of yeast-containing wells with specialized media.

Electric power will be generated by deployable solar panels rated at 30 watts, and telecommunications will rely on the Iris transponder at X-band.