A Call for Student Creativity

The team, which includes NYUAD faculty members from the Music Program Carlos Guedes, Matteo Marciano, and Director of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Science (CASS) Andrea Macciò, extended the initiative by launching a competition in June. They invited NYUAD students to submit their music for a chance to be played in space. Two original compositions by NYUAD Emirati alumna Nadine Kabbani and NYU Steinhardt American student Summer Reid, who was visiting NYUAD last spring, earned the rare opportunity to be launched into space aboard a SpaceX rocket.

These compositions, alongside works by Guedes, Marciano and Barilaro, were streamed from the ISS, with accompanying performances by cellist Tina Guo and composer Steve Mazarro. The music was carried on a payload that was included in the space-bound rocket. Sending payloads to space is costly, and while private sector ventures in space travel have driven down the price of launching material, costs still range in the thousands to tens of thousands per kilogram. This makes access to space fiercely competitive, particularly for academic projects.

Why Space Art?

This raises the question: why send something seemingly unscientific to the ISS? The answer is twofold. First, the musical component of the payload was a small microchip containing music, as part of several experiments being sent into the unique environment of low-Earth orbit. Despite its small size, it likely attracted the most attention, offering a powerful way to engage people on Earth with space exploration.

“I wanted to broaden the opportunities because I believe that there is literally space for everyone in space,” said Barilaro. “We want to debunk this old view of space as something for the very few, privileged people to have access to. It’s still challenging to send experiments up there, but space art is very important, and art is a very powerful language that brings people together.”

Expanding the Reach of Science

Beyond its artistic appeal, ASTROBEAT is a significant milestone in scientific outreach. It allows students to access real-time ISS data, gaining firsthand experience with the challenges and opportunities of space experimentation.

“This is an invaluable learning experience that connects creativity with cutting-edge research,” Macciò explained.

"Space is not just about science; it’s about exploration in every sense. By incorporating music and arts, we’re broadening the horizon of what’s possible in space," he added.

Macciò also pointed out that the project serves as a tool for inspiring the next generation of scientists and artists. “This project bridges the gap between Earth and space for our students. They’re not just spectators; they’re participants in a global experiment, which makes space more tangible and inspiring.”

Bridging Science and Creativity

The interdisciplinary collaboration between music and science opens new frontiers. Guedes explains that bringing together different knowledge forms can lead to discoveries that would otherwise be unknown. "Bringing different knowledge forms together is always good practice because it can lead to things that are more than the sum of the parts,” he added.

Guedes, who has collaborated with engineers in his native Portugal to bring music to new realms, most recently explored how different music and sounds in various spaces on Earth influence the way we listen. In a recent project at Expo 2020, he used field recordings to help tell the UAE’s national story through a multidisciplinary installation that combined art, history, and music. His research group, Music and Sound Cultures (MaSC), focuses on computational understanding using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and dissemination of music from the Arabian Gulf and historically connected regions of East Africa and South India.

Composing for Space

The piece Guedes submitted for the ISS was composed during the COVID-19 pandemic and written for a sci-fi play that traces the journey of statues from corporate buildings who, lonely during lockdown, traveled beyond Earth in search of companionship. Although not explicitly written for the experiment, Guedes said that performing the piece in space was fitting and brought new life to it.

“Throughout history, music has been written to be performed in specific spaces. You don’t perform the Ayala in a room because it’s meant to be performed outdoors, and a string quartet isn’t played in a vast space—it’s meant for intimate settings. With headphones, this concept is a bit blurred, but it’s worth considering: what kind of music should be composed specifically for space?” he said.

This was a central question for Barilaro as he worked on Moon Seeds, a neo-classical piece recorded at NYUAD and performed on the ISS. Inspired by the seeds taken by astronauts on Apollo 14 in 1971, the piece reflects on humanity's connection to space as a “multiplanetary species.” The piece features cello by Guo and composition by Mazarro.

Pushing Boundaries: Black Sun

Another piece, Black Sun, uses sounds from a NASA recording of a black hole. Barilaro sees it as an experimental piece that challenges listeners’ perceptions. “It’s a challenge for both the audience and the students recording it. We want to push the boundaries, to make the public feel uneasy, because it’s something completely different. It will be a learning experience for both the public and especially for the students,” he said.

The piece was recorded entirely on campus by Gazelien Records - which played a crucial role in the intricate engineering behind Black Sun and Moon Seeds under the guidance of Marciano. The entire recording process unfolded at NYUAD’s campus, where Marciano’s students gained invaluable hands-on experience within a professional recording environment. 

This project demanded precision, with every element carefully considered to achieve the piece’s ambitious goals. In The Ball Hall—an acoustically engineered space renowned for its clarity—a Steinway Model D grand piano became the centerpiece of this endeavor. Surrounded by a meticulous array of microphones and wires, the piano’s every chord, resonance, and even the wood’s subtle reverberations were captured. Marciano and his students deployed multiple microphones to capture the intricate tonal layers and ensure no detail was left unheard.

ASTROBEAT's Impact and Recognition

ASTROBEAT is an MCAST project funded by Xjenza Malta through the Space Upstream Program. The ISS payload opportunity is being made available by Nanoracks (Voyager Space) through its partnership with NASA’s US National Lab.

NASA and ISS National Lab have praised ASTROBEAT not only for its artistic innovation but also for its role as a groundbreaking scientific experiment. ASTROBEAT proposes for the first time the investigation of the cold-welding phenomenon for use in spacecraft hull repair following a hypervelocity impact by space debris. An experimental test rig is going to be tested and qualified on the International Space Station, thanks to an environment providing for an extended period of time microgravity conditions.