Celestial Laboratories was founded in 2018 to compete in a national competition organized by the UBC Mars Colony at the University of British Columbia. The competition, named the Project Airlock Challenge, asked universities across Canada to design and prototype an airlock to be used on the Martian surface, that respected all the constraints of the Martian environment. The competition was divided accordingly into two phases: the Design Phase, to be held in May 2019, and the Prototype Phase, to be held in August 2021.

Celestial Laboratories was one out of 17 groups that applied for the competition, a number that whittled down to 4 as the Design Phase of the competition rolled out in May 2019. Celestial Laboratories won the awards for Best Design and the Most Creative Design. It went on to compete in Phase II, beating out the only remaining finalist, University of Waterloo, in August 2021 to win the Best Design/Prototype Award overall.

In the following few months, Celestial Laboratories filed for patents for its inventions. It is now developing a demonstration prototype to showcase its design to the industry.

Celestial Laboratories is currently led by Anwit Adhikari, one of the earliest team members and the Chief Designer for all the experimental technologies in development.