Two astronauts are on a mission to find out how microgravity affects menstruation in a groundbreaking spaceflight scheduled for 2027. It’s one small step for space science, but a giant leap for menstrual health research.
The first human went to space in 1961. Eight years later, they were walking on the moon. In the decades since, we’ve studied how microgravity affects the human body, from bone density to muscle mass. And yet, one fundamental question remains unanswered: what happens when you get your period in space?
It might sound like a niche question, but it matters. More than 100 women have travelled to space, yet menstruation has never been directly and quantitatively studied in microgravity. With space agencies and private companies looking towards longer missions, including eventual trips to Mars, surely understanding how periods work beyond Earth should be part of the plan?
Now, two researchers are hoping to change that. Manju Bangalore, founder of menstrual health non-profit Operation Period, and Priya Abiram, the organisation’s director of research, are set to lead a dedicated mission investigating menstruation in microgravity aboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceflight in 2027. Their project, Operation Period-01 (OP-01), will explore how menstrual fluid behaves in microgravity and how everyday period products, including pads and tampons, perform in space.
For Bangalore, the mission is about much more than scientific curiosity. It’s the next step in a wider effort to challenge the stigma surrounding periods and ensure that menstrual health receives the attention it deserves.
Bangalore founded Operation Period in 2015 after experiencing what she describes as a “really painful period” and recognising that there was a “bigger issue” at hand. Periods were being treated as something to hide, rather than a normal part of life that deserved proper care, research and understanding.
“We’re just not talking about it because periods are so stigmatised,” she told People. That silence, she explained, has consequences far beyond embarrassment or discomfort. She recalled hearing about a 14-year-old girl in Kenya who died by suicide after being shamed for getting her first period and bleeding through her clothes without realising what was happening.
“This issue is like life or death,” Bangalore said, explaining why she coined the term “menstrual freedom” to describe a world in which no one is held back because of their period.
It’s an ambitious mission on Earth, but Bangalore is now taking it somewhere rather more unexpected: outer space.
Why haven’t we studied periods in space before?
Despite decades of human spaceflight, menstruation remains a significant gap in our understanding of how the body functions beyond Earth. According to Bangalore, while some qualitative information exists, there is little direct data on what happens to menstrual fluid in microgravity or how period products perform in those conditions.
One reason is that menstruating astronauts have often chosen to suppress their periods using hormonal contraception, avoiding the practicalities of managing menstruation during a mission.
It’s a practical solution, but it also means that a basic question about human biology has remained largely unanswered. If we want spaceflight to accommodate more people, understanding menstruation should be part of designing missions around the realities of the human body, rather than expecting those bodies to adapt to systems that weren’t designed with them in mind.
There’s a parallel here with menstrual healthcare on Earth, too. Painful or disruptive periods can be managed with hormonal contraception, but symptoms can also warrant further investigation. Conditions such as endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (formerly PCOS) can be overlooked when menstrual health concerns are dismissed or treated without sufficient investigation. The point isn’t that managing periods with hormones is inherently wrong; it’s that people should have informed choices, and research should give them the evidence to make those choices.
What will the astronauts be studying?
The 2027 mission will focus on menstrual fluid dynamics and the performance of period products, including pads and tampons, in microgravity. Put simply, the researchers want to understand how menstrual fluid behaves when gravity is no longer working as it does on Earth, and whether products designed for everyday conditions perform as expected in space.
“We are leading a menstrual fluid dynamics experiment that will also look at menstrual product performance of pads and tampons,” Bangalore said.
The flight will be suborbital, meaning the spacecraft will travel into space without entering orbit around Earth. While one mission won’t answer every question about menstruation in space, it could provide an important starting point for more detailed studies.
Bangalore is already thinking beyond this first flight. She hopes future missions will build on the findings and generate larger datasets, helping researchers develop a clearer picture of what menstruation looks like in microgravity.
That information could eventually help astronauts make better-informed decisions about menstrual care on long-duration missions, where access to supplies, storage and waste management all need careful planning. It could also contribute to reproductive health research on Earth, where many aspects of menstrual health remain under-researched.
Ultimately, this is about making sure space exploration keeps pace with the people taking part in it. If humanity is serious about travelling further into space, including the prospect of living and working on Mars, we need to understand how the human body responds to those environments in all its diversity.
The fact that we’re only now beginning to investigate periods in space says a lot about the gaps that can emerge when certain aspects of human health are overlooked. Bangalore and Abiram’s mission won’t solve them all, but it’s a significant step towards ensuring that menstrual health is no longer left out of the conversation.
Nasa engineers once packed 100 tampons for astronaut Sally Ride’s week-long flight. Let’s hope that research like this results in the correct number of tampons or pads – and some knowledge of what it’ll be like up there on your period without a hot water bottle.
Image: Adobe Stock and Getty.