May 26 (UPI) -- SpaceX's 22nd cargo resupply mission, slated to launch no earlier than June 3, will see several unique science experiments -- involving water bears, baby squids and kidney stones -- ferried to the International Space Station.

Like so many experiments before them, the bulk of the experimental setups being carried aboard SpaceX CRS-22 are designed to illuminate the health risks facing astronauts.

One of these will use tardigrades, or water bears, to do so.

"Tardigrades are renown for their ability to withstand a number of extreme stresses," Thomas Boothby, an assistant professor of molecular biology at the University of Wyoming and the principal investigator on the Cell Science-04 experiment, told reporters during a press call on Wednesday.

Tardigrades can survive absolute zero and boiling water, withstand intense air and water pressures and persist in a dormant state for up to 30 years without food and water.

"Importantly for this mission, they've been shown to survive and reproduce during spaceflight and can even survive prolonged exposure to the vacuum of outer space," Boothby said.

For the experiment, scientists are planning to conduct both short-term and long-term tests, exposing single generations of water bears, as well as multiple generations, to the stresses of spaceflight, such as microgravity and radiation.

"We're going to be recovering those animals and looking at what genes they've turned on and off while aboard the ISS to get a sense of how they're coping with the stresses," Boothby said.

A separate experiment, called UMAMI, will use another tiny creature, baby bobtail squids, Euprymna scolopes, to study the impacts of spaceflight and microgravity on animal-microbe symbiosis.

"I'm very interested in how beneficial microbes communicate with animal tissues in space," said UMAMI principal investigator Jamie Foster.

"It's really important to understand how those microbes and their relationship with tissue and each other cause the microbiome to change in the space environment," Foster said.

Healthy adult squid maintain a symbiotic relationship with the bacterium Vibrio fischeri. For the UMAMI experiment, several dozen immature bobtail squid -- all of which will be bacteria-free -- will be flown to the International Space Station.

Once onboard, the bacteria will be introduced to the squid paralarvae and allowed to colonize their light organs, an extra set of primitive eyes.

Researchers will monitor the onset of symbiosis for 12 hours before freezing the squid for tissue analysis back on Earth.

Astronauts face a variety of health challenges in space, one of which is an increased risk of kidney stones.

"On Earth, gravity helps maintain bone structure, and so bones tend to demineralize in space," said principal investigator Ed Kelly, associate professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Washington.

"Where does that calcium phosphate and magnesium go? It goes to the kidneys. This is one of the big reasons why astronauts are so susceptible to kidney stones," Kelly said.

But studying kidney stone formation on Earth is complicated by gravity. In lab experiments, kidney stones tend to sink to the bottom of solutions as they grow, complicating observation and measurement efforts.

Kelly and his research partners hope the kidney cell models -- installed on 3D tissue chips -- will help them solve this problem.

"We think the microgravity environment will allow us to model how kidney stones form and what can be done to prevent them from forming," Kelly said.

Additionally, SpaceX will carry experiments testing robotic arm and solar panel technologies, as well as more resilient cotton crop varieties, according to NASA.

20 years aboard the International Space Station

The International Space Station is photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking on October 4, 2018. NASA astronauts Andrew Feustel and Ricky Arnold and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev executed a fly-around of the orbiting laboratory to take pictures of the space station before returning home after spending 197 days in space. Photo courtesy of NASA/Roscosmos

Guinness World Records announced on October 19, 2020, that NASA astronauts Christina Koch (R) and Jessica Meir, who made history with the first all-female spacewalk on October 18, 2019, are being honored for this achievement with a feature in the Guinness World Records 2021 edition. The historic spacewalk took place at the ISS, where they worked on maintenance and upgrades. While this was Koch's fourth spacewalk, it was Meir's first. Photo by NASA/UPI | License Photo

Expedition 64 NASA astronaut Kate Rubins is seen having her Russian Sokol suit pressure checked as she and fellow crewmates Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos prepare for their Soyuz launch to the ISS on October 14, 2020, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The trio was launched at 1:45 a.m. EDT to begin a six-month mission aboard the ISS. Photo by Andrey Shelepin/GCTC/NASA | License Photo

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is happy to be aboard the ISS after the hatch opening of the Soyuz spacecraft March 28, 2015. Kelly traveled with Expedition 43 Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka on the Soyuz TMA-16M that was launched the day before from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Kelly and Kornienko each spent a year in space and returned to Earth on Soyuz TMA-18M in March 2016. Photo courtesy of NASA

Astronaut William Shepherd (C), the Expedition 1 mission commander, looks on while Soyuz commander cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko (L) and the flight engineer, cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, apply final touches to his full pressure entry suit as he lies on a couch of a Johnson Space Center trainer on May 12, 2000. Scheduled to come back from his space station stay aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, the three were participating in a rehearsal of their duties during shuttle descent. Photo courtesy of NASA

Kelly cared for two crops in the Veggie Plant Growth Facility during his year in space. Understanding the most effective ways to grow plants in microgravity is a key piece of the future journey to Mars. Growing plants in space provides crew members with fresh foods to supplement their diets, as well as a positive effect on morale and well-being. Photo courtesy of NASA

Tim Kopra photographed his breakfast floating inside of the Unity module aboard the ISS on April 16, 2016. In a tweet, he remarked "#Breakfast taco on#ISS:refried beans, shredded pork, pepper jack cheese, eggs and salsa on a tortilla. Awesome." Photo courtesy of NASA

Flight controllers at the ISS Mission Control at Johnson Space Center monitor systems aboard the orbiting laboratory during a number of dynamic events for Expedition 44 on August 10, 2015. Screens in the front of the room show the camera views from two spacewalking Russian cosmonauts, while NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren is seen harvesting lettuce from the veggie experiment that would become the first food grown in space to be eaten. Photo by Bill Stafford/NASA

Expedition 61 crew members, from left to right, NASA flight engineers Meir, Andrew Morgan and Koch with Commander Luca Parmitano of ESA unpack fresh fruit and other goodies from a stowage bag delivered aboard Japan's HTV-8 cargo craft on the ISS on October 7, 2019. Photo courtesy of NASA

Kelly corrals the supply of fresh fruit that arrived on the Kounotori 5 H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV-5) on August 25, 2015. Visiting cargo ships often carry a small cache of fresh food for crew members aboard the ISS. Photo courtesy of NASA

NASA astronauts Jeff Williams (shown here) and Rubins successfully installed a new international docking adapter on August 19, 2016, during a 5-hour, 58-minute spacewalk. Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi assisted the duo from inside the space station, while all three then cleaned up the Quest airlock, where they stowed their spacesuits and tools. Photo courtesy of NASA

Koch worked in the vacuum of space 265 miles above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa aboard the ISS on January 15, 2020. She and Meir conducted a spacewalk to install new lithium-ion batteries that store and distribute power collected from solar arrays on the stations Port-6 truss structure. Photo courtesy of NASA

Astronauts aboard the ISS captured these star trail images as they orbited the Earth at 17,500 mph on October 3, 2016. Photo courtesy of NASA

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy embarks on a spacewalk outside the ISS on June 16, 2020. Photo courtesy of NASA

Behnken and Cassidy completed the first of two scheduled spacewalks on June 16, 2020, to replace batteries on one of two power channels on the far starboard truss (S6 Truss) of the ISS. Of this image posted by Behnken on Twitter, he said: "Yesterday, @Astro_SEAL snapped this shot from our worksite on @Space_Station @SpaceX's Crew Dragon and @JAXA_en's HTV in clear view. Not bad for a view while working. " Photo courtesy of NASA/Twitter | License Photo

Koch (L) and Meir work on their U.S. spacesuits ahead of a spacewalk they conducted to install new lithium-ion batteries that store and distribute power collected from solar arrays on the stations Port-6 truss structure on the ISS on January 15, 2020. Photo courtesy of NASA

Commander Peggy Whitson works to change the media in a BioCell for the OsteoOmics experiment inside the Microgravity Sciences Glovebox in the Destiny U.S. Laboratory on the ISS on May 3, 2017. Photo courtesy of NASA

Rubins checks a sample for air bubbles before loading it in the biomolecule sequencer in September 2016. Photo courtesy of NASA

Roscosmos cosmonaut and Expedition 63 Flight Engineer Ivan Vagner transfers biological samples into a science freezer for stowage and later analysis aboard the ISS on October 7, 2020. Photo courtesy of NASA

Cassidy (L) and Behnken work on U.S. spacesuits inside the ISS's Quest airlock. The two conduct spacewalks on June 26 and July 1, 2020, to begin the replacement of batteries for one of the power channels on the orbiting laboratory. They replaced aging nickel-hydrogen batteries for one of two power channels on the far starboard truss (S6 Truss) of the station with new lithium-ion batteries that arrived to the station on a Japanese cargo ship. This was the culmination of power upgrade spacewalks that began in January 2017. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

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