Oné Mikulskytė is laying the groundwork to make deep space livable.
From testing astronaut medicines on the ISS to studying exoplanets, the Lithuanian-born researcher is turning once-abstract space dreams into practical steps for exploring beyond LEO.
Part I: ESA: Mikulskytė is a Space Project Manager at Delta Biosciences, a Lithuanian biotech firm tackling one of exploration’s toughest barriers to long-term habitation—radiation. She and the Delta Biosciences team are sending active pharmaceutical ingredients to orbit, in partnership with ESA, for long-radiation exposure testing. The experiment will last nearly three years and analyze how medicines degrade in space—a vital test to ensure astronaut medicine remains safe on months-long Mars voyages.
Part II: NASA: In a second Delta Biosciences mission, Mikulskytė is working with the Space-H Space Health Accelerator program (which includes NASA among its partners) to develop radioprotective compounds to keep astronauts healthy far beyond Earth. “We’ve proved we can live in LEO for decades,” she said. “But I’m really curious to see what we can do to help people go beyond.”
Exoplanets: Mikulskytė’s scientific reach goes beyond keeping future spacefarers healthy:
- Mikulskytė is currently pursuing a master’s of science in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Amsterdam, where her thesis focuses on exoplanets. She also serves as an intern at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre, continuing her exoplanets research.
- Her exoplanet focus area? Circumbinary systems—planets orbiting two suns. “Depending on whether you’ve seen Star Wars or not, it is planets similar to the Tatooine planet,” she joked.
Mikulskytė is also committed to space awareness outreach, especially in her home country of Lithuania, where the sector is still young. Her leadership earned her the 2024 Women’s Space Award for Student Leadership at the Women’s Aerospace Network, in recognition of her impact as both a researcher and role model.
Looking forward, she’s keeping her options open, but knows her trajectory. “I will stay close to space,” Mikulskytė said. “I cannot see my life without it at this point.”
