Ovarian cells from cows are moo-ving to the space station, together with a set of different intriguing science experiments.
The most recent International Space Station (ISS) cargo, coming courtesy of a Northrop Grumman robotic Cygnus cargo spacecraft, will blast off on the corporate’s Antares rocket no sooner than 5:50 a.m. EST (1050 GMT) on Sunday (Nov. 6) from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. You possibly can watch dwell right here at House.com, courtesy of NASA Tv. Protection begins 20 minutes earlier than launch.
After arriving on the ISS on Tuesday (Nov. 8) and getting put in, the bovine cell bonanza (OVOSPACE (opens in new tab)) will have a look at how microgravity impacts the expansion of cells. This might ultimately have functions for human fertility remedies, experiment co-principal investigator Andrew Fuso informed House.com.
“That is actually our first method, and it’s for the second an observational examine,” Fuso, who can also be an affiliate professor on the Sapienza College of Rome, stated throughout a livestreamed press convention on Oct. 25. After the outcomes are in, the investigators will analysis doable drug interventions or edible (nutraceutical) components to enhance fertility outcomes in future research, he added.
Associated: NASA-funded spacesuit tech may help with menopause relief
Additionally heading to the orbiting laboratory is a 3D printer often called the BioFabrication Facility (opens in new tab), which additionally reached space in 2019 to print some human knee cartilage (particularly, the meniscus), and a set of human coronary heart cells.
“We introduced [the printer] again to our lab in Indiana … so as to add just a few new capabilities, reminiscent of the flexibility to lastly management the temperature of every printhead, and now we’re excited to see it launch,” stated Wealthy Boling, vice chairman of company development for in-space manufacturing and operations on the firm Redwire House, in the identical convention.
Associated: Bioprinter will 3D-print human tissue on the space station
After one other space cargo, Redwire will print a brand new meniscus and examine it within the lab to prepare for doable affected person transplants sooner or later, Boling stated. Blood vessels and cardiac tissues will probably be manufactured as properly. Redwire additionally plans drug efficacy testing in space on “organoids,” or miniature variations of organs.
Boling hinted that such analysis would proceed on Orbital Reef, a Redwire-supported business space station in growth for flight within the 2030s. The challenge is led by Blue Origin and Sierra House, and consists of companions like Boeing and Amazon.
Among the different experiments making their space debut embody, within the words of NASA (opens in new tab):
- Assessing how vegetation adapt to space: Vegetation uncovered to spaceflight bear adjustments that contain the addition of additional info to their DNA, which regulates how genes activate or off however doesn’t change the sequence of the DNA itself. This course of is called epigenetic change. Plant Habitat-03 (opens in new tab) assesses whether or not such variations in a single era of vegetation grown in space can switch to the following era.
- Mudflow mixtures: Local weather change and world warming are contributing to growing prevalence of wildfires. When a wildfire burns vegetation, combusted chemical compounds create a skinny layer of soil that repels rainwater. Rain then erodes the soil and may flip into catastrophic mudflows that carry heavy boulders and particles downhill, inflicting important injury to infrastructure, watersheds, and human life. Post-Wildfire Mudflow Micro-Structure (opens in new tab) evaluates the composition of those mudflows, which embody sand, water, and trapped air.
- First satellites from Uganda and Zimbabwe: BIRDS-5 (opens in new tab) is a constellation of CubeSats: PEARLAFRICASAT-1, the primary satellite developed by Uganda; ZIMSAT-1, Zimbabwe’s first satellite; and TAKA from Japan. BIRDS-5 performs multispectral observations of Earth utilizing a business off-the-shelf digital camera and demonstrates a high-energy digital measuring instrument. The information collected might assist distinguish naked floor from forest and farmland and presumably point out the standard of agricultural development.
- Powering the space station: {Hardware} to be put in outdoors the station in preparation for the set up of Roll-Out Solar Arrays (opens in new tab).
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a ebook about space medication. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
