At this year's Most Awards ceremony, The SpaceStation will sponsor the Media Agency Rising Star Award. The Media Agency Rising Star Award goes to the person who has consistently displayed excellent relationship skills, open minded, innovative, confident, challenges the status quo, outspoken, decisive, takes the lead, involved in the industry and developing a profile.

Image supplied.

We chose to sponsor The Media Agency Rising Star Award, specifically because in the digital arena, the landscape changes almost daily. In this fluid industry, it is essential that industry pillars recognise the need for ongoing development and robust recognition for those people who are showing talent in the media industry both as an inspiration to future talent and an ongoing guide for the industry as a whole.

The award ceremony will be held on Thursday, 14 September 2017 at The Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg.

Voting for the 9th annual Most Awards will continue until Friday, 30 June 2017. To vote, click here.

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The SpaceStation sponsors Media Agency Rising Star Award - Bizcommunity.com

After a week of tests on the end of the International Space Station's robotic arm, the Roll-Out Solar Array (ROSA) was safely jettisoned. While the rollable solar panel unfurled successfully at the beginning of the experiment, the ground operations team was unable to retract it to stow.

ROSA is a flexible, lightweight unit that could someday help power solar-electric propulsion spacecraftfor journeys far beyond Earth. It was released yesterday (June 26) according to a procedure developed before the instrument flew, in case of this contingency, NASA officials said in a blog post.

"Once jettisoned, ROSA will not present any risk to the International Space Station and will not impact any upcoming visiting vehicle traffic," they added.

If it had been retracted successfully, ROSA would have been stowed in the trunk of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which departs the space station in a week. But it still wouldn't have made it back to Earth: Dragon's trunk will detach and burn up in Earth's atmosphere as the cargo spacecraft returns.

During the week-long experiment, crews on the ground monitored how well ROSA deployed, observing via video from the space station, as well as measuring its performance over the course of the week as the assembly moved through sunlight and shadow. Its re-rolling marked the end of the instrument's in-space test, according to NASA.

The space station crew is busy packing Dragon for its departure Sunday (July 2); the departing spacecraft will bring cargo and experiments back from the station to splash down in the Pacific Ocean about 5.5 hours after its 11:38 a.m. EDT (1538 GMT) release from the station.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her@SarahExplains.Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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Farewell, ROSA! Space Station Lets Go of Roll-Out Solar Array After Retraction Fail (Video) - Space.com

A new NASA video explores the science of space gardening and what researchers are learning about plants in space.

In 2015, astronauts aboard the International Space Station ate the first produce ever grown in space. During Expedition 44, NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren, as well as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kimiya Yui, chomped down on red romaine lettuce that was grown in the station's Veggie plant growth system in August of that year.

It was a big moment, and a necessary step toward NASA's goal to travel to Mars someday. [Plants in Space: Photos by Gardening Astronauts]

As the new video from the agency's video series "Science at NASA"explains, the ability to grow both edible and nonedible plants in space is essential for deep-space travel and the establishment of dwellings. Plants provide both a food source and the ability to recycle air and water, Anna-Lisa Paul, a University of Florida professor who researches how plants grow in extreme environments, said in the video.

While it was a major step toward someday being able to grow gardens on Mars, the lettuce taste test was nowhere near the end of this endeavor. Scientists aboard the space station and here on Earth continue to test how plants adapt to harsh environments.

Paul and her colleague Robert Ferl, also at the University of Florida, first launched plants into space in 1999, on space shuttle Columbia, and have been studying plant growth in space ever since.

The roots of plants grown on tilted soil on Earth grow in a slanted direction, which scientists call "skewing," according to the video.

Through their research, Paul and Ferl discovered that gravity doesn't actually affect the direction in which roots grow, as Charles Darwin had previously hypothesized. Darwin believed that skewing was partially due to gravity's effect on the roots, but Paul and Ferl discovered that plants grown in microgravity exhibit the same behavior, meaning that roots don't need gravity to seek out necessary nutrients.

Growing in microgravity did, however, change the plants' genetic response, according to the video.

"When living organisms are faced with environmental change, their response almost always involves a change in genetic expression," Paul said in the video. "To cope, they switch on and off certain genes."

The genes that changed are associated with the cell walls of plants, according to the video, though Paul and Ferl aren't yet sure what purpose this serves. They plan to conduct experiments to study this effect as well as other ways plants adapt to microgravity, and scientists aboard the space station will also continue to study plant growth in an effort to help people survive on Mars and beyond.

Follow Kasandra Brabaw on Twitter @KassieBrabaw. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Gardening in Microgravity: How Space Plants Are Adapting (Video) - Space.com

This proof of concept shows the front plate of an oven that can bake bread in microgravity.

A team of engineers and scientists may have just found a way for astronauts to enjoy fresh bread in space.

Currently, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) rely on tortillas as their "bread" because they have a long "shelf life" and don't produce crumbs. But now, a team of engineers and scientists in Germany is developing an oven that works in microgravity, as well as space-grade dough that's suitable for baking bread in orbit, so that astronauts may one day be able to bake and enjoy fresh bread on the job.

Germany-based startup Bake In Space also plans to develop a made-in-space sourdough brand based on yeast cultivated at the International Space Station.

According to Sebastian Marcu, founder and CEO of Bake In Space, the idea came from his friend, spacecraft engineer Neil Jaschinski, who had been struggling to find a better solution to what he says was poor-quality bread in the Netherlands, where he works.

"Bread is a big topic in Germany," Marcu told Space.com. "We have 3,200 variations of bread, with a bakery pretty much on every street corner. In the Netherlands, most Germans would complain about the quality of bread." [Space FoodEvolution: How Astronaut Chow Has Changed (Photos)]

Spacecraft engineer Neil Jaschinski poses with Bake In Space's prototype microgravity oven.

Jaschinski have overcome the lack of good bread by learning to bake his own at home. However, he and Marcu realized that their fellow German, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst who is slated to command the ISS in the second half of 2018 would have no choice but to survive his six months in space on NASA-approved tortillas.

"I have heard from several former German astronauts that they really missed bread" while in space, Marcu said. "Everything on the space station has to have [a] long shelf-life. And fresh produce, freshly baked products that's something they really miss."

Former German astronaut Gerhard Thiele has joined the project as well.

'We need to take care of the human beings that we are sending [to space], of their wellbeing, and food, as well as the environment, is an essential part of this," commented Thiele, who spent 11 days in space in 2000 aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-99

To have something fresh, whether it is bread or whether it is vegetables, it would be wonderful.

Bread has been a staple in human diet for thousands of years but replicating the art of bread making in orbital conditions presents multiple challenges. Microgravity, Marcu said, is only one of them.

"We have to comply with a whole set of safety regulations that we have on the space station," Marcu said. "We have to make sure that none of the surfaces [of the oven] becomes hotter than 45 degrees Celsius [113 degrees Fahrenheit]. This means that we cannot preheat the oven; we cannot open the oven in the middle of operation."

On Earth, bread needs to be baked at a temperature of about 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Once its done, the bakers remove it from the heated oven. But that would not be possible in space. Processes such as thermal convection, which helps to mix up air on Earth, don't work in space. If a bubble of air that hot were to escape from the oven in orbit, it could stay floating inside the station for quite a while, posing a serious health risk to the astronauts,Marcu said.

Marcu said the team has found a way to overcome this challenge.

"We basically put the baking product, the dough, inside the cold oven and start heating it up," he said. "Once it's almost done, we start cooling it down. But at that time, any product will start to get dry, and that's why we need to design the oven so that some water is added during the baking process."

The oven also needs to be able to operate with only 270 watts of power about one-tenth the power used by conventional ovens on Earth. Marcu said the team hopes to have a prototype ready by the end of this year. [The International Space Station:Inside and Out(Infographic)]

Mastering the process of baking is only one step toward making the space-grade bread. Crumbs could damage the station's equipment, or astronauts could accidently inhale them. Marcu said he hopes the combination of the new baking process and a carefully designed dough will solve the problem.

There are further challenges when it comes to the dough, Marcu added. While the ultimate goal is to make bread in space from scratch, he said, the engineers will launch a premade bread product to the space station as a first step. But as with all space food, this bread product will have to have an extremely long shelf life and survive without a fridge or a freezer.

"At the moment, we are testing out different dough recipes, doing longevity storage tests, keeping them at ambient temperature and making sure that nothing grows inside that is not wanted that could contaminate the space station," Marcu said.

Separately, Bake In Space will send a yeast culture to the space station that the astronauts will use to create sourdough, which will be delivered back to Earth to establish a line of made-in-space bread.

Sourdough is a traditional type of bread dough that people used before the industrialization of bread making. It uses naturally occurring yeast and bacteria that ferment the dough and provide it with its typical mildly sour taste.

"Sourdough basically takes up the bacteria from its near vicinity and the person that has his hands in the bread, and that's how the special taste of the bread is developed," Marcu said. [Can You KeepKosheror Halal inSpace?]

"Wherever you are on Earth, sourdough has a unique taste, whether it's created in San Francisco or India," he added. "It will be interesting to see what the flavor will be when we cultivate it in space."

Marcu said the made-in-space bread could be one small way to improve the quality of life in space before space tourism and deep-space exploration fully take off. Although the diversity of space food has improved greatly, it can still be rather dull compared Earth-based fare.

"On Earth, bread has always been a symbol of quality of life," Marcu said. "Bread always stands for friendship and well-being, and that's what drives our project. If we want to go further into space, we need to create quality of life, and that's why bread is really a stepping stone for human exploration of space."

Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandGoogle+. Original article onSpace.com.

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Lightning and 'Probably Satellites' Seen from Space ...

International Space Station has always been home to a multitude of scientific experiments. One of their latest is unusual: It includes artificial human body parts and will help the scientists aboard the station learn even more about the effects of microgravity on the human body.

Knowing how the body will reactis key for some of themissions NASA has planned for the future, likes those that will go further into space.

The experiment will last for four years and is part of a collaboration between the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space.

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Now, there won't be spleens and livers free-floating around the space station. Instead, these "organs" will be small transparent slides, each about the size of an AA battery, with microfluidic channels running throughout that will recreate the effect of blood and airflow. These channels will be lined with the cells of an organ to be studied.

The cells will grow in three dimensions and won't flatten on a slide like they would on Earth. Each organ chip focus on a specific conditionthat astronauts often face in microgravity, including respiratory infections, bone deterioration, and cellular aging and recovery

The kidney-on-a-chip model will help show the effect of microgravity affects kidney function but also, the data and results could potentially be applied to kidney-related conditions, like kidney stones. Similarly, the brain-on-a-chip model will be studied neurodegeneration which will help astronauts as well as people dealing with certain neurological conditions back on Earth.

Originally posted here:

NASA to Study Artificial Organs on the Space Station - Nextgov

This SpaceX photograph captures the company's Falcon 9 rocket just before it landed successfully on the drone ship "Just Read the Instructions" in the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 14, 2017.The stage will ride again June 23 as SpaceX launches a communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

After a slight delay, a used SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to make its second trip to space today (June 23) to orbit the first communications satellite for Bulgaria. The BulgariaSat-1 launch will mark the Falcon 9's second flight this year, and may kick off a double-header with a Sunday SpaceX launch as well.

You can watch the launch live onlinehere at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX.

The rocket with pre-flown booster is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center's historic Pad 39A during a window extending from 2:10 to 4:10 p.m. EDT (1810-2010 GMT). On Jan. 14, the company successfully launched and landed the booster while putting 10 communications satellites into low-Earth orbit for the Virginia-based company Iridium. This time, the booster will help loft Bulgaria's communications satellite before landing again.

If successful, this will mark SpaceX's 11th successful first-stage landing and the company's second time re-flying a previously used booster. SpaceX also reused a flown Dragon cargo capsule to bring supplies to the International Space Station earlier this month. SpaceX will attempt to land the booster on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX has a second launch planned within 48 hours on Sunday (June 25) a new Falcon 9 is set to launch another 10 satellites for Iridium, but across the country at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellites will form part of the company's 70-satellite Iridium NEXT constellation. You will be able to watch that launch live on Space.com as well.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to show that the spent booster will attempt to land on a drone ship, not on a ground-based landing pad as previously stated.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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Watch SpaceX Rocket Re-Launch, Kicking Off Double Header - Space.com

In training, they had told us, If you smell ammonia, dont worry about it, because youre just going to die.

Then the alarm went off, and it said ATM and Samantha went, Thats atmosphere! Its ammonia! We put our oxygen masks on and ran to the Russian section youre supposed to take your clothes off, because if you have ammonia on your clothes, it can kill you.

Those are the words of Space Station Commander Terry Virts, describing to Yahoo News the moment astronauts were evacuated from the US section of the International Space Station in January 2015 and moved into the Russian side after a signal raised concerns of an ammonia leak.

Houston called us and said, This is not a drill, execute ammonia response. The Russian Prime Minister called us, and said, Hey American colleagues, you can stay in the Russian segment. We spent the whole afternoon staring at each other. If there had been an ammonia leak, the station would have died.

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But the world in general never knew that story. At the end, they said, False alarm but keep your gas masks on just in case. When we went back, it was like a ghost ship. Things were floating about. It was eerie like an Alien film a lot of things beeping.

After that, I went back to the Russian segment and left a bunch of spare clothes, just in case.

Virts was speakingto Yahoo News at the Starmus science festival in Trondheim ahead of the launch of his book View From Above: An Astronaut Looks at The World later this year.

Virts, 49, is a highly experienced pilot and astronaut who flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour prior to a 200-day mission on the International Space Station starting in 2014.

Virts shot to worldwide fame due to his photographs including an iconic shot where he did the Vulcan hand signal to honour Star Treks Leonard Nimoy after his death.

He says that spending 200 days in space offers a new perspective on life on Earth, You look down, and you cant see borders. You think, Why are we fighting? Youre with the Russians, and you think, I love these guys.

Im not a hippie guy, Im a realist but you think life is hard enough to fight disease, and grow food. Why do we fight?

The only borders you can see clearly are ones like India/Pakistan and North Korea/South Korea.

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In one of Virts most iconic images he took 300,000 while on the Space Station South Korea is seen glowing with electric light, while North Korea is shrouded in darkness.

Virts says that people often ask him about that image. He says, That border between North Korea and South Korea is the most striking photo of the human condition I took from space.

For Virts, the most intense part of his 200-day mission on the Space Station were spacewalks outside the station itself.

On a space walk, youre in command youre basically a spaceship. Your suit has water for cooling, theres a rocket pack. Its a spaceship. Theres maybe ten layers of metal but your visor is a very thin layer of plastic. If you poke a hole in it, youre going to die.

Theres a picture of this robotic arm that youre doing work with then the most beautiful sunrise youve never seen. Every once in a while, youre hearing from God. Youre seeing things no human should see. Then you think, I should get back to work.

Virts says that he feared he would be depressed when he returned to Earth but the problem he is now facing, having travelled 84 million miles above our planet, is that he has too many countries he wants to visit.

Virts says, The problem with flying in space, your bucket list gets too long.

Starmus festival, hosted by NTNU, Norway, Trondheim, http://www.starmus.com. Starmus is the worlds most ambitious science and arts festival with Professor Stephen Hawking as keynote speaker, 11 Nobel laureates and Buzz Aldrin, Oliver Stone, Brian Cox and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

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Photo: Kathleen O'Rourke / King School

After 228 days in space, Conn. astronaut retires

After 228 days in space on three space shuttle missions and one long stay at the International Space Station, Connecticuts astronaut has retired.

Rick Mastracchio, 57, a UConn graduate and Waterbury native retired from NASA on Friday.

"Rick is a classmate and a friend and he has done great work for NASA, both in space and on the ground," Chief Astronaut Pat Forrester said in a release announcing the veteran spacemans retirement.

Forrester, who was selected as an astronaut in the same class as Mastracchio, said "his breadth of experience over three decades in human spaceflight will serve him well as he moves on to his next endeavor."

During his four spaceflights, Mastracchio took photos of his native Connecticut from high above. He used social media to post photos and send greetings to Nutmeg State residents on Earth. His most recent mission ended in May 2014 after he spent 188 days aboard the International Space Station.

Some of the photos are so detailed, you can even see Charles Island in Milford, Interstate 95 and major southwest Connecticut cities.

Touched down in Stamford

In 2014, Mastracchio and colleague Steve Swanson did a live question-and-answer session from the space station with children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which had a new building since the December 2012 shooting that killed 26 people.

Last March, Mastracchio visited King School in Stamford where he told students of his time in space.

"My first mission, I would float upside down and hang from the ceiling eating my lunch, for no really good reason other than I can float upside down and eat my lunch," Mastracchio said. "It's really neat."

Mastracchio, who made nine spacewalks since 1996, told students that weird things happen in space aside from the challenges of simple-on-Earth tasks like showering and shoe-tying.

The lack of gravity causes astronauts to lose the calluses they have on the bottoms of their feet and develop new ones on top. While orbiting Earth, they experience 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. Six people sharing the same filtered air gives the International Space Station a unique smell.

Weightlessness also causes fluid retention.

"You get this puffy head and you feel warm like maybe you have a bit of a fever," Mastracchio said. "You see some astronauts and it's really, really obvious. Your body goes through a lot of changes in both directions."

But nothing beats floating.

"It's really cool," he said. "It's like you're Superman."

From UConn to space

In 1982, Mastracchio was awarded a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of Connecticut, and two master of science degrees in electrical engineering and physical science, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and University of Houston-Clear Lake, respectively.

In 2014, he delivered the graduation address to UConns school of engineering. His recorded address was shown on the video boards at Gampel Pavilion to about 5,000 people, including more than 400 graduating seniors and their families, and several members of Mastracchio's family, including his wife, Candi.

Beginning in 1987, Mastracchio worked first with Hamilton Standard and then with Rockwell Shuttle Operations Co. before coming to NASA in 1990 as an engineer. He worked in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory on space shuttle flight software, and in the Astronaut Office on ascent and abort procedures for crew members. From there, he became a Guidance and Procedures Officer flight controller, working in mission control for space shuttle ascents and entries, before being selected as an astronaut in 1996.

The missions

His first flight, STS-106, came in 2000, on board space shuttle Atlantis, when he and his crewmates worked to prepare the space station for its first expedition crew. He returned aboard space shuttle Endeavour for STS-118 in 2007, when as lead spacewalker, he participated in three spacewalks to install a new truss segment, a new gyroscope and a new spare parts platform on the space station's exterior.

In 2010, Mastracchio was part of the STS-131 crew of space shuttle Discovery. He performed another three spacewalks and helped deliver 27,000 pounds of hardware, including three experiment racks and new sleeping quarters for the space station. He was then able to put the hardware to use in 2014, when he spent 188 days in space as part of the Expedition 38 and 39 crews. During that stay, he performed three more spacewalks, leaving him with a total of 53 hours spent outside the space station on nine spacewalks.

Earlier reporting by Liz Skalka was used in this story.

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After 228 days in space, Conn. astronaut retires - CT Post

Medtech organisation Emulate was awarded $2 million by the NIHs National Centre for Advancing Translation Sciences (NCATS) to use its organs-on-chips technology to evaluate the effects of space travel on human brain cells. The research could help uncover new ways of understanding neurological diseases on Earth.

The grant will allow Emulate to develop a fully automated research platform and conduct experiments onthe International Space Station. Emulate will analyse the Brain-Chip, which consists of neuronal and vascular endothelial cells in a living micro-engineered environment. Experiments will be conducted under healthy and inflamed states to assess how space travel affects neuronal function.

The experiments will be conducted by the Centre for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the organisation which NASA tasks to manage research onboard the International Space Station. CASIS will be responsible for implementing Emulates Human Emulation System, which combines micro-engineering with living human cells to examine human biology.

The International Space Station gives researchers an environment to study human health in microgravity. This allows them to decouple the force of gravity from other effects that can impact brain cell function. Researchers will conduct a number of experiments using the Brain-Chip which study a range of factors regarding space travel and human health. These include how hypergravity experienced during launch, reduced availability of oxygen and increased levels of stress hormones influence brain function.

Geraldine A. Hamilton,president and chief scientific officer of Emulate said: We are honoured to be selected for this research at the International Space Station which sets forth courageous goals to pioneer discoveries in space and to improve human health here on Earth. As we make our Human Emulation System available to labs throughout the world, we continue to push new boundaries. It's an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate with experts working in the space program so that we can leverage research with Organ-Chips in space and apply the learnings to human health challenges that are experienced on Earth.

The project will also assess the relationship between inflammation and brain function, potentially advancing understanding of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons. In particular, the research will focus on blood-brain barrier functionality. The blood-brain-barrier protects the brain by preventing unwanted substances entering the brain, and can be altered during inflammation. The studies will use the Brain-Chip to evaluate the efficacy of anti-inflammatory therapeutic intervention on the bloodbrain barrier in space.

NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, said: Conducting research with Organs-on-Chips technology on the International Space Station is a remarkable opportunity to understand disease and improve human health. Physiological functions in the microgravity of the International Space Station will provide insights that will increase translational effectiveness on Earth, including identifying novel targets for drug discovery and development.

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Captain's log: Medtech company to conduct research on International Space Station - Med-Tech Innovation

June 21, 2017 12:00 ET | Source: Center for the Advancement of Science in Space

Kennedy Space Center, FL, June 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced five grants have been awarded in response to afunding opportunityfocused on human physiology and disease onboard the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory. Data from this research which will feature tissue chips (or organs-on-chips) will help scientists develop and advance novel technologies to improve human health here on Earth. These initial five projects are part of a four-year collaboration through which NCATS will provide two-years of initial funding of approximately $6 million, to use tissue chip technology for translational research onboard the ISS National Laboratory. Awardees will be eligible for a subsequent two years of funding, pending availability of funds, based upon performance and achieving milestones for each project.

The opportunity to partner with CASIS to perform tissue chip science on the International Space Station is a remarkable opportunity to understand disease and improve human health, said NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, M.D. Physiological functions in the microgravity of the International Space Station will provide insights that will increase translational effectiveness on earth, including identifying novel targets for drug discovery and development.

The NCATS grants will support the following research projects:

Lung Host Defense in Microgravity

George Worthen, M.D. and Dan Huh, M.D, Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia (PA)

Implementation Partners: Space Technology and Advanced Research Systems (STaARS) and SpacePharma Inc

There is a link between infections and the health of our immune system. Infections are commonly reported onboard spacecraft where exposure to microgravity negatively affects immune system function, but the mechanisms responsible are not well understood. The goals of this project are to test engineered microphysiological systems that model the airway and bone marrow; and to combine the models to emulate and understand the integrated immune responses of the human respiratory system in microgravity.

Organs-on-Chips as a Platform for Studying Effects of Microgravity on Human Physiology: Blood-Brain Barrier-Chip in Health and Disease

Christopher Hinojosa, M.S. and Katia Karalis, D.S., M.D, Emulate, Boston (MA)

Implementation Partner: SpaceTango

The objective of this project is to validate, optimize and further develop Emulates proprietary Organs-On-Chips technology platform for experimentation with human cells in space. The intent is to develop an automated platform and software to accelerate experimentation in space that will become available to the broader scientific community for studies in human physiology and disease in space. The scientific findings will provide new advancements for Earth studies in human disease and drug discovery. The Brain-Chip to be studied in microgravity is a prototype for an organ system centrally positioned in homeostasis and thus, involved in the pathogenesis of multiple types of disease including neurodegeneration, traumatic injury, and cancer.

Cartilage-Bone-Synovium Microphysiological System: Musculoskeletal Disease Biology in Space

Alan Grodzinsky, Sc.D., M.S and Murat Cirit, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MA)

Implementation Partner: Techshot

This research focuses on a cartilage-bone-synovium joint tissue chip model to study the effects of space flight on musculoskeletal disease biology, motivated by post-traumatic osteoarthritis and bone loss. The effects of pharmacological agents to ameliorate bone and cartilage degeneration will be tested on earth and in the International Space Station, using a quantitative and high-content experimental and computational approach.

Microgravity as Model for Immunological Senescence and its Impact on Tissue Stem Cells and Regeneration

Sonja Schrepfer, M.D., Ph.D., Tobias Deuse, M.D., and Heath J. Mills, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco (CA)

Implementation Partner: Space Technology Advanced Research Systems (STaARS)

Many space-related physiological changes resemble those observed during cellular aging, including defects in bone healing, loss of cardiovascular and neurological capacity, and altered immune function. This project aims to investigate the relationship between an individuals immune aging and healing outcomes, and to investigate the biology of aging from two directionsnot only during its development in microgravity conditions but also during recovery after return to earths environment.

Effects of Microgravity on the Structure and Function of Proximal and Distal Tubule Microphysiological System

Jonathan Himmelfarb, M.D., and Ed Kelly, M.S, Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle (WA)

Implementation Partner: BioServe Space Technologies

When healthy, your two kidneys work together filter about 110 to 140 liters of blood to produce about 1 to 2 liters of urine every day. Dehydration or diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure impair kidney function and result in serious medical conditions including protein in the urine and kidney stones. Like osteoporosis, these conditions are even more common and follow an accelerated time-course in people living in microgravity. This project will send a kidney model to the International Space Station in order to understand how microgravity and other factors affect kidney function, and to use these discoveries to design better treatments for proteinuria, osteoporosis, and kidney stones on earth.

Our partnership with NCATS builds upon dramatic results fostered by public and private investment in organ-on-chip research and enables these pioneering researchers the opportunity to leverage the ISS National Laboratory to further advance an integral and burgeoning area of medical discovery to improve human health on Earth, said CASIS Deputy Chief Scientist Dr. Michael Roberts. Additionally, through these creative and collaborative partnerships with established granting agencies like the NCATS, the ISS National Lab demonstrates that research in microgravity is a viable setting to push beyond the terrestrial limits of scientific discovery and opportunity.

All grants and subsequent flight opportunities are contingent on final contract agreements between the award recipients, NCATS and CASIS.

For more information on the NCATS Tissue Chip for Drug Screening Program, including Tissue Chips in Space, please visit https://ncats.nih.gov/tissuechip.

To learn more about the on-orbit capabilities of the ISS National Lab, including past research initiatives and available facilities, visitwww.spacestationresearch.com.

# # #

About CASIS: The Center for Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is the non-profit organization selected to manage the ISS National Laboratory with a focus on enabling a new era of space research to improve life onEarth. In this innovative role, CASIS promotes and brokers a diverse range of research inlife sciences,physical sciences,remote sensing,technology development,andeducation.

Since 2011, the ISS National Lab portfolio has included hundreds of novel research projects spanning multiple scientific disciplines, all with the intention of benefitting life on Earth. Working together with NASA, CASIS aims to advance the nations leadership in commercial space, pursue groundbreaking science not possible on Earth, and leverage the space station to inspire the next generation.

About the ISS National Laboratory:In 2005, Congress designated the U.S. portion of the International Space Station as the nation's newest national laboratory to maximize its use for improving life on Earth, promoting collaboration among diverse users, and advancing STEM education. This unique laboratory environment is available for use by other U.S. government agencies and by academic and private institutions, providing access to the permanent microgravity setting, vantage point in low Earth orbit, and varied environments of space.

# # #

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4efb40f5-4081-428a-8548-9602bcb08511

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CASIS and NCATS Announce Five Projects Selected from ... - GlobeNewswire (press release)

By Crystal Maynard U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command

FORT DETRICK, Md., June 21, 2017 Scientists at the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research here are hoping to determine how bones heal in microgravity, based on an experiment that launched to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX in February and returned to earth aboard SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft in March.

Through the Department of Defense Space Test Program, the USACEHR Integrative Systems Biology group and their partners at the Indiana University School of Medicine collaborated with NASA and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to have the scientists aboard the International Space Station conduct the experiment for a month.

The primary goal of this research project is to translate new discoveries in bone regeneration for osteoporosis, fracture healing and other bone disorders. Between 2002 and 2009, extremity injury accounted for up to 79 percent of reported trauma cases from combat theaters. Improvised explosive devices and high-energy explosions can cause extremity trauma so severe that often amputation is the only treatment.

Bone Healing

"We're trying to understand what happens in the body as the bones start healing," said Dr. Rasha Hammamieh, director of Integrative Systems Biology at the USACEHR and the study's lead scientist. "Understanding of bone healing is a mission critical subject for both the military and astronaut community."

The researchers carried out systems biology studies to understand the physiological events associated with wound healing mechanisms when subjected to gravitational forces and to identify potential signatures to predict the healing outcomes. USACEHR hopes that the results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind healing mechanisms, as well as show the efficacy of the osteoinductive drugs at stressed conditions and their susceptibility to gravity.

According to Hammamieh, 40 mice were segregated into a specially-designed habitat under different treatment regimens for a month aboard the International Space Station. While in space, the mice were cared for and monitored by astronauts while the USACEHR and University of Indiana School of Medicine team monitored their progress daily via video. Following the completion of the testing, the mice were shipped back to Earth for comparison with a control group that remained on the ground.

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Army Scientists Hope Space Experiment Unlocks Clues to Bone Healing - Department of Defense

NEW FILMS

Life

Everybody Loves Somebody

Wilson

Railroad Tigers

Altitude

TELEVISION

Colony: Season Two

Incorporated: Season One

This Beautiful Fantastic

Workaholics: The Final Season

The sci-fi action film Life, directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), is set on the International Space Station. After a probe digs up a sample of Mars for analysis, theres excitement about the possibility that this may be the first evidence of life beyond Earth.

So its no surprise that they do find life there wouldnt be a movie otherwise but this isnt E.T. What ensues takes us into Alien horror territory.

Life has a solid cast, led by Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson, and some nifty special effects. It even has a few interesting ideas involving the freaky possibilities of extraterrestrial life, but ultimately the film looks more familiar than wondrous.

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There are horrors on the space station in 'Life,' now on DVD - LA Daily News

ANCHORAGE AK Alaskan Academy Award winner Ben Grossman, has created a virtual reality tour of the International Space Station.

Grossman, who grew up in Delta Junction and attended UAF before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film-making, created the virtual reality tour in partnership with NASA.

He explained that his company Magnopus went to the Johnson Space Center and proposed to NASA to put a 360 degree camera in the International Space Station.

The idea was to give people the feeling down on earth of floating around in space, said Grossman.

To prepare for the pitch, the team at Magnopus created a virtual reality tour of the ISS instead of making pictures, 3D models or artworks, said Grossman.

NASA approved the pitch and suggested that Magnopus should release the virtual reality tour as a stand-alone thing.

Grossman agreed and with the support of Occulus Rift his company started developing the experience.

Over 6 months, Grossman, his team of artists and a lot of astronauts developed the virtual reality tour that includes participation in tutorials, spacewalks and even docking a Space X ship.

Grossman explained that for many of the astronauts who had been to the ISS, there was an element of homesickness to not being able to return to space.

Grossman then went on to tell KTUU that he had to decide what image would be seen through the famed Cupola window of the ISS.

Being Alaskan, Grossman decided on Anchorage but he was careful to put elements of Denmark, Africa and Italy to hide his hand.

Grossman also confirmed that he is currently working on a major international film that is created in virtual reality and exported to be viewed in cinemas.

He said the production, slated for release in 2019, is the first of its type in the world and that he would be able to give more information later this year.

Grossman could not confirm a set timeline for when the 360 degree camera would be in place in the International Space Station

To view the project visit: Click here to go to the VR Tour

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Alaskan builds virtual reality tour of International Space Station - KTUU.com

NASA's new compact high-power solar array made their debut on the International Space Station Sunday (June 18), allowing astronauts to test the technology's durability for deep-space missions.

The Roll Out Solar Array(ROSA) is incredibly lightweight and flexible, meaning that it can easily be packed into a rocket for launch. ROSA is a collaboration between NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate and two private companies, including Deployable Space Systems (DSS) of Santa Barbara, California, and Space Systems Loral (SSL) of Palo Alto, California.

ROSA is designed to power missions using solar-electric propulsion spacecraft. The solar array wing technology is expected save on storage space and cut costs for long-distance trips beyond Earth, according to a statement from NASA. [Beaming Solar Power From Space (Video)]

The Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA) experiment is seen deployed on the International Space Station at the end of the outpost's Canadarm 2 robotic arm on June 18, 2017. The flexible solar wing could be used to power future spacecraft.

This past weekend, engineers on the ground remotely rolled out the solar arrayusing the space station's Canadarm2. The array will remain attached to the robotic arm for seven days. This experiment will test the overall effectiveness of the advanced solar wing. ROSA was delivered to the orbiting lab on June 5 aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship.

"We want to show that we can pull the wing back in in a predictable way," Jeremy Banik, the experiment's principal investigator and a senior research engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico,said in a statement. "A practical reason is that we have to pull it back for stowage after this investigation, but it will be good to know it can be done for future applications, potentially for a highly maneuverable spacecraft."

This time-lapse animation shows the novel Roll Out Solar Array experiment in action on the International Space Station on June 18, 2017. The ROSA experiment is aimed at testing new solar wing technology that rolls out an array like a party favor.

If successful, ROSA could help make NASA's robotic and human journeys to Mars and beyond possible. Incorporating the ROSA technology into Martian rovers, for example, would allow space vehicles to travel the planet's rugged surface more efficiently, since the solar arrays could be rolled up and stowed away when not in use, NASA officials have said.

"We get more power by using larger solar arrays. But efficiently packaging them for launch and then deploying those big arrays by a spacecraft has been the challenge," Al Tadros, SSL vice president of Civil and Department of Defense Business,said in a June 8 statement. "What the work on ROSA has done is develop a technique to deploy very large surface areas of flexible solar arrays, doing that efficiently with low risk. It's more power without increasing the mass dramatically."

Not only does the ROSA technology further NASA's deep-space exploration initiatives, it also benefits the commercial communications satellite industry which provides direct-to-home TV, satellite radio, broadband internet and various other services to those on the ground, according to the statement.

An artist's impression of the Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA) technology being used for deep space missions, such as NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission.

Previously, NASA has tested other solar array technology that folds and unfolds like origami to save space. But ROSA is made from lightweight mesh material that can be rolled up around a spindle and stowed in a more compact cylinder form.

ROSA is also scalable, which means it can be configured to work with other ROSAs to produce high-power levels, and can easily be deployed in a simple, yet reliable, two-stage process that takes about 10 minutes, Michael Ragsdale, research and development project manager at SSL, said in the statement from NASA.

"It's very unique and innovative, different than anything that's been done before," said Brian Spence, president of DSS, which is helping SSL incorporate the technology into its SSL 1300series platform of high-power satellites. "However, it's also extremely simple. That aspect of the technology really lends itself well to being accepted by end users, like SSL."

Editor's note: Video produced by Space.com's Steve Spaleta.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom,Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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NASA Tests Flexible Roll-Out Solar Arrays on Space Station (Video) - Space.com

A $2 million grant will fund new technology to evaluate the effects of space travel on human brain cells at the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory.

The grant, funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, a center of the National Institute of Health, will go to Emulate Inc., for the Boston-based companys Organs-on-Chips technology.

The company will use their Brain-Chip system and develop a fully automated research platform for experiments on ISS to be conducted under healthy and inflamed states to assess how space travel affects neuronal function, as well better understand how the human brain operates on Earth.

According to an Emulate press release, the ISS provides an environment where researchers can study human health in microgravity, allowing them to decouple the force of gravity from other effects that can impact brain cell function.

Different experiments will be conducted onboard to see how other space travel stressorshypergravity experienced during launch, reduced availability of oxygen known as hypoxia and increased levels of stress hormonesinfluence brain function.

As we make our Human Emulation System available to labs throughout the world, we continue to push new boundaries, Geraldine Hamilton, Ph.D., president and chief scientific officer of Emulate, said in a statement. Its an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate with experts working in the space program so that we can leverage research with Organ-Chips in space and apply the learnings to human health challenges that are experienced on Earth.

The Human Emulation System is an integrated system that provides a high-fidelity window into the inner-workings of the human body by integrating micro-engineering with living human cells to offer a new method to model human biology.

The researchers will also look at the relationship between inflammation and brain functiona very active area of investigation for furthering understanding of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases.

The study was particularly focus on the blood-brain-barrier, which protects the brain by preventing unwanted substances from entering the brain and can be altered during inflammation.

The studies will use the Brain-Chip to evaluate the efficacy of anti-inflammatory therapeutic intervention on the blood-brain barrier in space.

Conducting research with Organs-on-Chips technology on the International Space Station is a remarkable opportunity to understand disease and improve human health, NCATS Director Dr. Christopher Austin said in a statement. Physiological functions in the microgravity of the International Space Station will provide insights that will increase translational effectiveness on Earth, including identifying novel targets for drug discovery and development.

Emulate is expected to adapt the instrumentation of their Human Emulation System to achieve the requirements for use of Organs-on-Chips technology on ISS.

They will also develop space-compatible hardware with their two partnersIRPI and SpaceTango.

The adaptation of our Organs-on-Chips technology for research in space advances new frontiers for designing the functionality of our system to be highly-automated, streamlined, and size-efficient, Chris Hinojosa, director of Discovery at Emulate, said in a statement. We are further optimizing our system to meet the requirements for use in space which, in turn, will enable us to improve our system for use by many researchers and companies on Earth.

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Organs-on-Chips Tech to be Tested at International Space Station - R & D Magazine

Artists concept of a pulsar (blue-white disk in center) pulling in matter from a nearby star (red disk at upper right). The stellar material forms a disk around the pulsar (multicolored ring) before falling on to the surface at the magnetic poles. The pulsars intense magnetic field is represented by faint blue outlines surrounding the pulsar. Credit: NASA

A NASA instrument built to help astronomers learn about the structure and behaviour of neutron stars, super-dense stellar skeletons left behind by massive explosions, has been mounted to an observation post outside the International Space Station after delivery aboard a SpaceX supply ship earlier this month.

Since its arrival inside the trunk of SpaceXs Dragon cargo capsule, the X-ray astronomy experiment has been transferred from the spacecrafts unpressurized carrier to a platform on the space-facing side of the space stations starboard truss backbone, powered up and checked to ensure it can point at stellar targets as the research outpost orbits around Earth.

The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, or NICER, is now going through alignment checks and test scans, allowing scientists to fine-tune the instrument. The calibrations should be complete next month, and NICERs ground team has penciled in July 13 as the first day of the instruments 18-month science mission.

NICERs developers at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center crammed 56 individual X-ray mirrors inside the instruments shell, with matching silicon detectors that will register individual photons of X-ray light, measuring their energies and times of arrival.

NASA says NICER is the first mission dedicated to neutron star research. Astronomers discovered neutron stars in 1967, decades after scientists first predicted their existence.

Neutron stars are left behind after lower-mass stars exploded in violent supernovas at the ends of their lives. The material from the star ends up crammed into an object the size of a city, and astronomers say one of the densest stable forms of matter in the universe resides in the deep interiors of neutron stars.

Scientists compare the density of a neutron star to packing the mass Mount Everest into a sugar cube. One teaspoon of neutron star matter would weight a billion tons on Earth, according to NASA.

NICER flew to the space station inside the rear trunk of a SpaceX Dragon supply ship, which launched June 3 from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida and berthed with the orbiting outpost June 5.

The stations Canadian-built robotic arm extracted the NICER experiment from the Dragon spacecraft June 11, and the instrument rode to its mounting location on an external platform EXPRESS Logistics Carrier-2 on a mobile rail car down the stations truss.

Mission controllers in Houston commanded and monitored the multi-day transfer from the ground, with the help of the stations two-armed Dextre robot.

The space stations robotic arm installed NICER on its mounting plate June 13, and controllers powered up the instruments electronics the next day, verifying all systems were OK. Range of motion tests were completed Friday after engineers needed extra time to release troublesome launch restraint bolts.

NICER rode to the space station with two other experiments in Dragons trunk.

One of the payloads, sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory, will test a new solar array design could be used on future commercial satellites, making the power generators 20 percent lighter and able to fit into a launch package four times smaller than conventional fold-out solar panels.

A commercial Earth-imaging platform developed by Teledyne Brown was also stowed in Dragons trunk. TheMultiple User System for Earth Sensing, or MUSES, can host high-definition and hyperspectral cameras for Earth-viewing.

The MUSES payload was robotically moved to its new home on the space station before NICER, and the solar array testbed was unfurled for seven days of testing this week.

The installation of NICER clears the way for nearly a month of calibrations before it can start regular science observations.

Neutron stars are fantastical stars that are extraordinary in many ways, said Zaven Arzoumanian, NICERs deputy principal investigator and science lead at Goddard. They are the densest objects in the universe, they are the fastest-spinning objects known, they are the most strongly magnetic objects known.

The NICER science team wants to know the structure and composition of neutron stars, which are so extreme that normal atoms are pulverized, freeing subatomic particles like neutrons, protons and electrons.

As soon as you go below the surface of a neutron star, the pressures and densities rise extremely rapidly, and soon youre in an environment that you cant produce in any lab on Earth, said Slavko Bogdanov, a research scientist at Columbia University who leads the NICER light curve modeling group.

Unlike black holes, which develop from explosions of stars more than 20 times the mass of the sun, neutron stars can be directly observed.

A partnership between NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Naval Research Laboratory, NICER should give scientists their first measurements of the size of a neutron star.

They emit light all across the spectrum, from radio waves to visible light up to X-rays and gamma rays, primarily in narrow beams from their magnetic poles, Arzoumanian said. Just like the Earth, the magnetic poles on a neutron star are not necessarily aligned with the spin of the star, so you can get narrow beams that sweep as the star spins, just like a lighthouse.

And if we happen to be in the path of the sweep we see a flash everytime one of these beams go by and the stars from a distance appear to be pulsing, so theyre called pulsars, Arzoumanian said.

Scientists will also demonstrate the potential of using the timing of pulses from neutron stars for deep space navigation.

Were going to look at a subset of pulsars in the sky called millisecond pulsars, said Keith Gendreau, NICERs principal investigator at Goddard. In some of these millisecond pulsars, the pulses that we see are so regular that they remind us of atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks are the basis of the Global Positioning System satellites, according to Gendreau.

NASA calls the navigation demonstration the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology, or SEXTANT.

Jason Mitchell, SEXTANTs project manager at Goddard, said his team aims to use predictable pulsar signals to locate the space station with a precision of 6 miles, or 10 kilometres, without the aid of GPS satellites or on-board navigation solutions.

Thats a small step compared to GPS, but its a giant step for using only pulsar measurements, and that will help us get into deep space, Mitchell said.

Our goal is to turn the G in GPS into galactic, and make it a Galactic Positioning System, he said.

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Experiment devoted to neutron star research installed on space ... - Astronomy Now Online

Zytronic has supplied an 84in diagonal touch sensor to the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution (NASM) for a recently unveiled exhibit. The museum, which displays the worlds largest collection of aircraft and spacecraft, welcomes 6.7 million visitors annually, making it the fifth most visited museum in the world.

New Mexico-based Ideum was tasked with updating one of the museums most heavily used exhibits a touch-interactive table that enables visitors to design, customise and launch space station modules of their own creation. The exhibits legacy iteration was projection based; and while it was very popular, the table was out-dated and was becoming harder to maintain.

The Smithsonian was looking for an update of this proven exhibit. We made some minor improvements to the interface and improved the software itself, but the biggest upgrade was to move the exhibit from a projection-based, optical touch table to a highly reliable, hardened and responsive touch table, said Ideums founder, Jim Spadaccini. We effectively rebuilt the entire exhibit from the ground-up to withstand the rigours of nearly constant use at what is one of the busiest museums in United States.

Ideum engineered an 84in touch table and chose to use Zytronics touch sensor because it could be built to Ideums specifications, and was able to deliver the multi-touch capabilities required to support simultaneous use by up to six visitors. Zytronic was heavily involved in the design process, and was able to produce the single, bespoke design 84in touch sensor without any of the upcharges that often accompany custom work from other touchscreen manufacturers. The ZyBrid touch sensor was designed using 6mm-thick thermally toughened Anti-Glare etched glass, providing a combination of smooth finger glide interactivity and impact resistance, and the Ideum table was manufactured in powder coated aluminium for additional durability.

To support the new hardware configuration, Ideum also redesigned the software to include key interactive elements. Specifically, once users complete their space station modules, they are able to virtually launch their module, displaying the final product at the centre of the table. Users can then email a rendering of the final product to friends or family.

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Zytronic sensor modifies new space station exhibit - Installation International

Jun.19.2017 / 10:35 AM ET

While it plans to someday host a moon colony and space station, the proposed space-based nation Asgardia is starting small: The project will launch its first satellite this fall to store data for the nation's newly selected citizens. Some 200,000 were chosen from the more than 500,000 applicants.

During a press conference in Hong Kong on June 13, Asgardia's founder, Igor Ashurbeyli, revealed concrete details about the satellite: Asgardia-1 will be deployed from Orbital ATK's Cygnus OA-8 resupply spacecraft launching in September.

Related: Private Space Stations of the Future Imagined

The satellite is 10 x 20 x 20 centimeters (3.9 x 7.9 x 7.9 inches) and has eight batteries and four deployable solar arrays. It will orbit at up to 500 kilometers (310 miles) above Earth. Texas-based space-services firm NanoRacks acts as the satellite's prime contractor and operator.

Someday, Ashurbeyli said, he hopes to create a planetary-defense constellation that will help protect against asteroids, solar flares and human-made space debris; this satellite is just the first step.

During the conference, Ashurbeyli also described plans for a space station and moon colony. "We plan to have this station in space and on the moon," he said. "It will be a four-level orbital station. I think the technical details will be defined by the Ministry of Science, which I hope we will have in the autumn of this year."

Ashurbeyli didn't provide additional details, but Asgardia has released imagery of the potential off-Earth locations. One image shows a rotating-wheel space station alongside an interplanetary rocket, and another shows, presumably, the interior of that space station with a wall of windows, a canal and greenery. The rocket has a habitation module and a lunar lander that looks like a cross between the NASA Orion spacecraft and the 1960s Apollo program lunar lander.

The approved applicants for Asgardian citizenship will be invited to vote on a constitution for the space-based nation on June 18. At that time, Ashurbeyli said, the organs of the proposed state the ministries, parliament and executive branch should be created. Ashurbeyli is calling June 18 Asgardian National Unity Day, and the date will be a public holiday if the state is realized.

Related: Incredible Technology: How to Build a Space Station Colony

More than 500,000 people applied for Asgardian citizenship online within 20 days when the project was announced in October last year. The organizers removed ineligible people, such as children, and were left with almost 200,000 people from about 200 countries. (Now, the website lists more than 210,000.) The approved applicants have each received personal certificates of Asgardia and can vote to approve the lawyer-designed constitution on June 18. The constitution was published on June 13.

Of the citizenship applicants, 80 percent are men, and the largest demographic comprises 18- to 35-year-olds. While there are applicants from almost every country on Earth, China has the most applicants, followed by Turkey, then the United States and then Italy. People can register as prospective Asgardians on the website.

Asgardia is being funded by Ashurbeyli's nonprofit Aerospace International Research Center (AIRC), based in Vienna. He said he expects that once Asgardia's constitution is approved, the state will be built by its citizen volunteers and Asgardia will become self-funding. Ashurbeyli said he expects to file for United Nations recognition by April 2018, if Asgardia's parliament and government have been set up and the satellite launched before then, he said during the conference.

In the meantime, AIRC owns Asgardian intellectual property. The company will collect, analyze and fund ideas and startups in space technology for the benefit of Asgardia. Ashurbeyli is also offering 300KB of free data storage on board Asgardia-1 for Asgardian citizens. Family members, up to a maximum of 400,000 people, will get 200KB. Another 1 million people will get 100KB.

"Sixty years after the launch of the first-ever artificial satellite, Sputnik, our own space satellite, Asgardia-1, will mark the beginning of a new space era, taking our citizens into space in virtual form, at first," Ashurbeyli said.

Ram Jakhu, the director of McGill University's Institute of Air and Space Law in Montreal, is the Asgardia project team legal expert. During the conference, he told the press that the Asgardian data stored on Asgardia-1 would be subject to U.S. privacy laws. The Asgardians' data will also be stored on future Asgardian satellites.

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