SpaceX Dragon to Launch Space Mice, 3D Printer and More for NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. SpaceX might be a few years away from launching human astronauts into orbit, but this weekend, the company is sending a miniature crew of live passengers into space.

An intrepid all-female group of 20 mice will ride inside SpaceX'sDragon space capsule early Saturday (Sept. 20) when it blasts off atop a Falcon 9 rocket on a delivery run to the International Space Station.

The mice are among a motley batch of cargo that includes some unusual items and milestones: the first 3D printer in space, mutant fruit flies, an Earth wind-watching radar, a mouse X-ray machineand a commercial experiment designed to make a better golf club. Dragon's flight scheduled for 2:14 a.m. EDT (0614 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station will be SpaceX's fourth official resupply mission to the astronaut outpost under a contract with NASA. [See photos from the SpaceX-4 Dragon mission]

The space-bound mice will be the first residents of NASA's new Rodent Research habitat, which scientists will use to study the animals' behavior and health. NASA's past rodent astronauts that flew aboard the space shuttle rarely spent more than two weeks in space. This mission primarily intended to test out the new habitat and hardware will last 30 days.

"Never were we able to achieve a flight experiment of this duration, so we'll get some new information," said Ruth Globus, project scientist for the rodent habitat at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

The 4-month-old adult mice prepping to take flight belong to a popularly used strain of inbred black-colored lab mice known as C57 Black 6. Using cameras inside the rodent habitat, scientists will monitor the rodents' behavior in microgravity.

"Rodents don't just float around and have fun," Globus told reporters here. "They tend to hold onto the walls. They move around a lot like monkeys do. They run around. They're very physically active."

But that pattern of behavior could change the longer they stay in space, Globus said.

Astronauts lose muscle and bone strength quickly when they go to space. And the same is expected to happen to mice. Researchers will measure the rodents' loss in bone density throughout the flight using a new X-ray machine called the Bone Densitometer. Built by Techshot, the microwave-sized instrument is also launching inside Dragon on Saturday. It will be the first X-ray source to be on the space station.

The mice won't be returning home alive; at the end of their month-long mission, the rodents will be euthanized and dissected by the astronauts so that certain parts can be frozen and preserved for study back on Earth, Globus said. (Scientists are particularly interested in looking at the creatures' hind-leg muscles, liver and spleen.)