Category Archives: Space Station

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Space Station Flyover early Saturday - FOX Carolina

Parts of southeastern Wisconsin remain in an extreme drought. Conditions can be a concern for farming. But the University of Wisconsin-Madison is trying to solve the problem with an out-of-this-world experiment. Cotton seeds traveled to the International Space Station earlier this month for an experiment called "Targeting Improved Cotton Through Orbital Cultivation," or "tic toc" for short."The question we are asking is 'How does gravity make cotton roots grow?' and the experiment is to remove gravity and the only place you'll get to do that is on the space station," Dr. Simon Gilroy said.The main goal is to find a way to produce cotton using less water to help the environment."Cotton has a big environmental footprint, the best way to put that in context is to grow enough cotton to make a single t-shirt is somewhere around 700 gallons of irrigation water," Gilroy said.The findings could be beneficial for Wisconsin crops in the future."We are focused on cotton at the moment though the traits how deep the roots get, how big the volume they explore those are important for all crops," Gilroy said.Scientists are also looking at the plant's genetics and its drought intolerance."In the future, of course we are hoping to answer those same kinds of questions with space flight data on things like Wisconsin crops like corn and soybean," Gilroy said.The plants are expected to make it back July 7 to the Kennedy Space Station where they will continue to study them.

Parts of southeastern Wisconsin remain in an extreme drought.

Conditions can be a concern for farming.

But the University of Wisconsin-Madison is trying to solve the problem with an out-of-this-world experiment.

Cotton seeds traveled to the International Space Station earlier this month for an experiment called "Targeting Improved Cotton Through Orbital Cultivation," or "tic toc" for short.

"The question we are asking is 'How does gravity make cotton roots grow?' and the experiment is to remove gravity and the only place you'll get to do that is on the space station," Dr. Simon Gilroy said.

The main goal is to find a way to produce cotton using less water to help the environment.

"Cotton has a big environmental footprint, the best way to put that in context is to grow enough cotton to make a single t-shirt is somewhere around 700 gallons of irrigation water," Gilroy said.

The findings could be beneficial for Wisconsin crops in the future.

"We are focused on cotton at the moment though the traits how deep the roots get, how big the volume they explore those are important for all crops," Gilroy said.

Scientists are also looking at the plant's genetics and its drought intolerance.

"In the future, of course we are hoping to answer those same kinds of questions with space flight data on things like Wisconsin crops like corn and soybean," Gilroy said.

The plants are expected to make it back July 7 to the Kennedy Space Station where they will continue to study them.

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Scientists send seeds to space in hopes of learning how to grow with less water - WISN Milwaukee

Tiny water-dwelling creatures called tardigrades known for their ability to survive in the most extreme environments will be subject to a series of experiments at the International Space Station to reveal the secrets of their superpowers.

The 0.02-inch (0.5 mm) eight-legged creatures, also known as water bears, were sent to the space station as part of the Cell Science-04 experiment aboard the SpaceX Dragon 22nd resupply mission on June 3.

Tardigrades inhabit almost every ecosystem on Earth, including the most extreme habitats such as the deep sea, volcanoes and the Arctic. The new experiment will put their adaptation abilities to test in space under microgravity conditions and high radiation, according to NASA. Scientists will keep the tardigrades on the space station for four generations to see what changes take place in their DNA over time.

Related: There Are Thousands of Tardigrades on the Moon. Now What?

"We want to see what 'tricks' they [tardigrades] use to survive when they arrive in space, and, over time, what tricks their offspring are using," Thomas Boothby, assistant professor at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and principal investigator of the experiment, said in a NASA statement. "Are they the same or do they change across generations? We just don't know what to expect."

Tardigrades are already experienced space travelers. In September 2007, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent a batch of tardigrades for a 12-day space trip aboard the uncrewed FOTON-M3 spacecraft. Most of the colony survived the exposure to vacuum and cosmic rays. Some even managed to overcome solar UV radiation that can be up to 1,000 times higher in orbit than on the surface of Earth. Past experiments on Earth showed that tardigrades may produce more antioxidants substances that slow cell damage when faced with more radiation. The Cell Science-04 researchers hope the experiment will find out whether the same happens in microgravity. The scientists will also study how the stresses of spaceflight turn various tardigrade genes on and off, NASA said.

"Checking which genes are also activated or deactivated by other stresses will help pinpoint the genes that respond exclusively to spaceflight. Cell Science-04 will then test which are truly required for tardigrade adaptation and survival in this high-stress environment," NASA added.

The critters will reside in hardware called the Bioculture System, made by NASA's Ames Research Center. The hardware allows Earthbound scientists to remotely examine cultures of microscopic creatures, or cells and tissues, while adjusting the environment as they wish.

"In the long run, revealing what makes tardigrades so tolerant could lead to ways of protecting biological material, such as food and medicine from extreme temperatures, drying out, and radiation exposure, which will be invaluable for long-duration, deep-space exploration missions," NASA said. "That's superhero-size potential for the teeny tardigrade."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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These tiny indestructible tardigrades will reveal how to survive in extremes of space - Space.com

3 Florida Girl Scouts will have their projects, artwork launched into space

Their science projects and artwork will head to the International Space Station hopefully in August. The plan is for them to go into a box and that box will go on a SpaceX rocket set to launch in August.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Three local Girl Scouts will soon see their ideas launch into space.

They were recognized in a science challenge for Girl Scouts across the country, beating out nearly 1,000 entries for a spot in a Faraday box set to launch into space on a SpaceX rocket in August. The box will have a special spot on the International Space Station (ISS) Lab.

The "Making Space for Girls Challenge" was a space exploration competition put together by non-profit organization SpaceKids Global and the Girl Scouts of Citrus Council, in cooperation with NASA and aerospace industry company ProXops. Girls were competing to create a winning mission patch design, science experiment, and essay related to space exploration.

Junior Girl Scout Anwesha Joshi, 11, of Sanford won in the science experiment category.

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"Its just really exciting for me," said said about the honor. Joshi drew on her love of gardening and created a "Martian Dirt" experiment. "Since the Martian dirt isnt suitable for growing plants, I thought that if you took some soil from the Earth and tried combining it with the soil from Mars maybe if you grew plants from there you could bring soil from here."

Junior Girl Scout Ashley Lassiter, 10, was named a finalist in the art category and her mission patch design artwork is heading to the ISS too. She described the experience as crazy and surreal. Lassisters mission patch design features a rocket with the Girl Scouts logo and racially diverse Girl Scouts.

"I just kind of thought of it because one of the most important things is rocket engineering... including everybody is really important so I put different ages, different colored sages different hair, different skin tones."

The winning mission patch was designed by five-year-old Girl Scouts Indiana and Golda in California. It features a female astronaut with images of Earth, a rocket and satellite. Brownie Girl Scout Maggie Ross, 8, of Deland won the essay contest where she predicted what space travel would be like in the future.

"Rocket ships will be like trains. They will [be] chained together so that many people who have dreams to go to space can go," she wrote in part of her essay. SpaceKids Global Founder Sharon Hagle said, like SpaceKids Global, the challenge is meant to inspire and empower girls to go into science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education and jobs.

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"Today, there are over 3.5 million vacancies in the STEAM fields that need to be filled by 2025 women are dramatically underrepresented in these fields."

The competition is already inspiring girls to change those statistics. Lassiter and Joshi both say they want to become astronauts and visit Mars.

"I actually want to become a NASA engineer and help build space crafts," Joshi said. Hagle, a future astronaut who has trained where NASA astronauts have trained, said, "I want kids to know that with determination and motivation, you can accomplish anything because, after all, they were the next generation of space travelers."

The box filled with the Girl Scouts projects is expected to launch into space on August 18. Some Girl Scouts have been invited to watch the SpaceX launch.

Watch FOX 35 Orlando for the latest Central Florida news.

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3 Florida Girl Scouts will have their projects, artwork launched into space - FOX 35 Orlando

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and NASA crewmate Shane Kimbrough prepped for a third spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Friday to install the second of six roll-out solar arrays. It's part of a major upgrade to offset age-related degradation in the lab's existing solar wings.

As with all NASA spacewalks, the excursion is expected to begin when Pesquet and Kimbrough, floating in the station's Quest airlock, switch their spacesuits to battery power around 8 a.m. EDT. It will be Kimbrough's ninth spacewalk, Pesquet's fifth and the 241st in the 23-year history of the space station.

For identification, Pesquet, call sign EV-1, will be wearing a suit with red stripes while Kimbrough, EV-2, will be wearing an unmarked suit. Both men will be equipped with high-definition helmet cameras.

Robot arm operator Megan McArthur tweeted a photo Thursday of the crew rehearsing spacewalk procedures in the Destiny laboratory module, saying "practice makes perfect (we hope!)." McArthur (in light blue shirt) will operate the station's Canadian-built robot arm to help Kimbrough (at top, black shirt) and Pesquet (arms folded) move a new solar array into position for installation. Also visible is Mark Vande Hei (foreground).

The first two ISS roll-out solar arrays, or iROSAs, were delivered to the lab complex aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship on June 5. The astronauts originally planned to install them in a pair of spacewalks, but it took two outings, one on June 16 and another on June 20, to get the first new array installed.

That panel was mounted on a fixture at the base of an existing solar wing on the far left, port 6 segment of the station's power truss. The P6 truss segment supports two wings, feeding electricity into two of the lab's eight major power circuits: 2B and 4B.

The first iROSA was mounted on a fixture at the base of the P6/2B array, extending out 60 feet and tilted away from the original wing by 10 degrees. The second iROSA will be attached in similar fashion to the P6/4B wing.

As the name suggests, the new panels are designed to deploy from spools, unrolling on their own when tightly wound carbon composite support struts on either side are released.

NASA plans to install iROSA panels on six of the space station's eight original solar wings, all of which have suffered age-related degradation, including rocket plume deposits from visiting cargo and crew ships and impacts from micrometeoroids.

Each new iROSA blanket will generate 20 kilowatts of power and, acting in concert with the original arrays, boost power output back to factory fresh levels.

Pesquet tweeted a time-lapse video of first iROSA installation that was shot by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, showing the spacewalkers working in orbital daylight and darkness as the station's other original arrays tracked the sun:

"So the new arrays are installed on top, over in front of the existing solar arrays," said Dana Weigel, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center. "The exposed portion of the old arrays will still be generating power in parallel with the new arrays.

"Those new iROSA arrays have solar cells on them that are more efficient than our original cells, they have a higher energy density, and together in combination, they generate more power than what our original array, when it was new, did on its own."

The six roll-out arrays will generate a combined 120 kilowatts of power. Combined with 95 kilowatts generated by the unshaded portions of the original arrays, the station's total solar power output will reach 215 kilowatts when the upgrade is complete.

Excerpt from:
Spacewalk to wrap up second solar array installation at space station - CBS News

This article was originally published atThe Conversation.The publication contributed the article to Space.com'sExpert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Paulo de Souza, Professor, Griffith University

China's space program is making impressive progress. The country only launched itsfirst crewed flightin 2003, more than 40 years after the Soviet Union's Yuri Gagarinbecame the first human in space. China'sfirst successful Mars missionlaunched in 2020, half a century after the U.S. Mariner 9 probe flew past the Red Planet.

But the rising Asian superpower is catching up fast: flying missions to themoonandMars, launching heavy-lift rockets, building a newspace telescopeset to fly in 2024, and, most recently, putting thefirst pieceof the Tiangong space station (the name means"Heavenly Palace") into orbit.

In photos: Tiangong-1, China's space station fell to Earth

Tiangongis the successor to China's Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 space laboratories, launched in 2011 and 2016, respectively. It will be built on a modular design, similar to the International Space Station operated by the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency. When complete, Tiangong will consist of a core module attached to two laboratories with a combined weight of nearly 77 tons (70 tonnes).

The core capsule, named Tianhe ("Harmony of Heavens"), is about the size of a bus. Containing life support and control systems, this core will be the stations living quarters. At 25 tons (22.5 metric tonnes), the Tianhe capsule is the biggest and heaviest spacecraft China has ever constructed.

The capsule will be central to the space stations future operations. In 2022, two slightly smaller modules are expected to join Tianhe to extend the space station and make it possible to carry out various scientific and technological experiments. Ultimately, the station will include 14 internal experiment racks and 50 external ports for studies of the space environment.

Tianhe will be just one-fifth of the size of the International Space Station, and will host up to three crew members at a time. The first three "taikonauts" (as Chinese astronauts are often known) are expected to take up residence in June this year.

Tianhe was launched from China's Hainan island on April 29 aboard a Long March 5B rocket.

These rockets have one core stage and four boosters, each of which is more than 90 foot tall (nearly 28 meters tall) the height of a nine-story building and almost 10 foot wide (more than 3 meters). The Long March 5B weighs about 940 tons (850 metric tonnes) when fully fueled, and can lift a 28-ton (25 metric tonnes) payload into low Earth orbit.

During the Tianhe launch, the gigantic core stage of the rocket weighing around 22 tons (20 metric tonnes) spun out of control, eventually splashing down more than a week later in the Indian Ocean. The absence of a control system for the return of the rocket to Earth has raised criticism from the international community.

However, these rockets are a key element of Chinas short-term ambitions in space. They are planned to be used to deliver modules and crew to Tiangong, as well as launching exploratory probes to the moon and eventually Mars.

Despite leaving behind an enormous hunk of space junk, Tianhe made it safely to orbit. An hour and 13 minutes after launch, its solar panels started operating and the module powered up.

Tianhe is now sitting in low Earth orbit at the altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), waiting for the first of the ten supply missions scheduled over the next 18 months that are required to complete the Tiangong station.

A pair of experimental modules named Wentian ("Quest for Heavens") and Mengtian ("Dreaming of Heavens") are planned for launch in 2022. Although the station is being built by China alone, nine other nations have already signed on to fly experiments aboard Tiangong.

To find out when the space station might be visible from where you are, you can check websites such asn2yo.com, which show the stations current location and its predicted path for the next 10 days. Note that these predictions are based on models that can change quite quickly, because the space station is slowly falling in its orbit and periodically boosts itself back up to higher altitudes.

The station orbits Earth every 91 minutes. Once you find the time of the stations next pass over your location (at night, you wont be able to see it in the daytime), check the direction it will be coming from, find yourself a dark spot away from bright lights, and look out for a tiny, fast-moving spark of light trailing across the heavens.

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook and Twitter. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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China's Tiangong space station: What it is, what it's for, and how to see it - Space.com

Two astronauts will attempt to complete the installation of a new solar array on the International Space Station today (June 20) after running out of time last week and you can watch it live here.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet, from the European Space Agency, will exit the Quest airlock around 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), if the extravehicular activity preps go to plan. You can watch the spacewalk live here in the window above, courtesy of NASA TV, or directly via the agency's website.

On Wednesday (June 16), Kimbrough and Pesquet partially installed the first of six new solar arrays on the space station, but some technical issues and problems with the equipment delayed their attempts to complete the work.

Pesquet, who will be spacewalking for the fourth time, will be wearing the spacesuit with red stripes on it to designate him as lead spacewalker, known as extravehicular crewmember 1 (EV1). Kimbrough, wearing a plain white spacesuit as EV2, will be on his eighth spacewalk, according to NASA.

It will be their fourth spacewalk together; the pair took two spacewalks together duringExpedition 50, in 2017. They are currently part of the station's Expedition 65 crew.

Related: Spacewalking astronauts prepare International Space Station for new solar arrays

"Space is hard ... on our spacewalk, we encountered several issues that the entire team worked through incredibly well," Kimbrough said on Twitter on Thursday (June 17).

The spacewalk is expected to troubleshoot the installation of the first of the planned ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA) in front of a 20-year-old array located on the far end of the left side of the space station's backbone truss. If there's time, the astronauts will also deploy a second iROSA to augment the P6/4B solar array.

NASA is working on the spacewalks to boost the station's power system, after a more than four-year effort to put in newer and more efficient batteries on the ISS. The eight solar wings had an original design life of 15 years and are showing signs of degraded production of power after exceeding their planned time in orbit.

The newer solar arrays, made by Boeing and arriving at the ISS on a SpaceX Dragon June 5, are designed to deploy in front of the older ones. Once complete, electricity supply on the space station will be boosted by 20% to 30%.

NASA Expedition 65 astronauts Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei will support the spacewalkers from inside the space station, while a socially distanced team at NASA Mission Control in Houston will also assist the crew.

NASA says the spacewalk will be the 240th in support of station assembly, maintenance, and upgrades.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Astronauts will install a new solar array on the International Space Station in a spacewalk today. Here's how to watch. - Space.com

Boeings Starliner spacecraft is prepared for launch on the Orbital Flight Test-2, or OFT-2, mission. Credit: Boeing

Boeing finished loading hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide maneuvering propellants over the weekend into the companys second space-rated Starliner capsule at the Kennedy Space Center, days after stacking of its Atlas 5 launcher began a few miles away at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The capsule is scheduled to launch July 30 at 2:53 p.m. EDT (1853 GMT) on a test flight to the space station. If all goes according to plan, it will clear the way for Boeing to carry astronauts to the station, possibly before the end of this year.

That will be welcome news to NASA, which has funded the Starliner spacecrafts development through its a commercial crew program in a cost-sharing arrangement with Boeing. NASAs commercial crew contracts with Boeing since 2010 are valued at more than $5 billion.

NASA has a similar set of contracts with SpaceX valued at more than $3 billion for development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The contracts for both companies included a minimum of six operational crew rotation flights to the International Space Station.

Boeing appeared on track to launch its first Starliner crew mission in 2020, but the Starliners first unpiloted test flight in December 2019 ended prematurely without docking with the space station. Boeing and NASA officials blamed the botched test flight on software issues, including amission elapsed timer clock that was incorrectly set before launch.

The problem caused the spacecrafts computer to think it was in a different flight phase after deployment from the Atlas 5 rocket in orbit, causing the to capsule fire thrusters and burntoo much propellant.The higher-than-expected fuel usage prevented the Starliner spacecraft from docking with the space station.

Ground teams uncovered another software coding error that could have caused the spacecrafts service module to collide with the crew module after the two elements separated just before re-entry. During certain parts of the shortened two-day mission, there were also difficulties establishing a stable communications link between the Starliner spacecraft and NASAs network of tracking and data relay satellites.

Despite the problems, the capsule returned to Earth for a parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.

Boeing is now refurbishing that capsule for the Starliner Crew Flight Test. But first, Boeing and NASA managers agreed to launch a second Orbital Flight Test, a mission called OFT-2, to wring out the spacecrafts software and complete the demonstration tasks left unaccomplished by the OFT-1 mission in 2019.

A second Starliner crew module will fly on the OFT-2 mission. Once it is back on Earth, Boeing will refurbish the capsule for future crew missions. Every Starliner mission will feature a new service module, which burns up during re-entry.

But the OFT-2 mission has to well before Boeing and NASA can finalize a schedule for the Crew Flight Test.

Boeing said last week that engineers have closed out all recommendations from a joint NASA-Boeing independent review team set up to investigate the problems on the OFT-1 mission. The review team issued 80 recommendations, including more thorough integrated software testing and mission simulations, process improvements, crew module communication system improvements, and organizational changes.

Boeing has implemented all recommendations, even those that were not mandatory, ahead of Starliners upcoming flight, the company said in a statement.

Earlier this year, Boeing completed an end-to-end mission simulation in the companysAvionics and Software Integration Lab in Houston. The test combined flight hardware and the final version of the spacecrafts flight software.

The end-to-end rehearsal was not performed to verify software code before the OFT-1 mission in 2019.

I am extremely proud of the NASA and Boeing Starliner teams as they methodically work toward the OFT-2 mission next month with final checks of the crew module and service module hardware and software as we prepare for this important uncrewed test mission, said Steve Stich, manager of NASAs commercial crew program.

Closing all of the independent review team findings for the software and communications systems is a huge milestone for the commercial crew program and included many long hours of testing and reviews by our dedicated Boeing and NASA teams during this Covid-19 pandemic, Stich said in a statement.

In parallel with the software testing, Boeing technicians at the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center have finished the bulk of the preparations on the spacecraft for the OFT-2 mission.

In January, Boeing mated the crew module and service module inside the processing facility, a former space shuttle hangar.

A Boeing spokesperson said Monday that the crew and service modules have been fully loaded with their mix of hypergolic propellants, which will feed the spacecrafts thrusters for maneuvers to rendezvous with the space station and the de-orbit burn at the end of the mission.

United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is the launch provider for Starliner missions. On June 17, ULA raised the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket for the OFT-2 mission on its launch platform inside the Vertical Integration Facility near pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

ULA planned to install two strap-on solid rocket boosters and a dual-engine Centaur upper stage on the Atlas 5 rocket, setting the stage for delivery of the Starliner spacecraft to the VIF in mid-July.There will be no pre-launch fueling rehearsal on the Atlas 5 rocket before the OFT-2 mission.

In the weeks ahead, mission control teams in Florida and Texas will continue conducting simulated mission dress rehearsals for the uncrewed OFT-2 and follow-on crewed missions. Starliners landing and recovery teams also will perform an on-site checkout of one of the vehicles landing zones, Boeing said in a statement.

Technicians also loaded cargo into the Starliners pressurized crew module, which will fly with an instrumented test dummy in one of its seats. The OFT-2 mission will deliver around 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of cargo and crew supplies to the space station.

Assuming the mission launches July 30, the Starliner spacecraft is scheduled to dock July 31 with the forward port of the space stations Harmony module.

In late July, before the Starliners arrival, four of the space stations seven crew members will strap into their SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship for a relocation from thee forward docking port to an upper port on the Harmony module. That will clear the way for the Starliners docking.

Boeing said the OFT-2 mission is expected to last about five to 10 days before undocking from the station and returning to Earth. The capsule will target one of five landing zones in the Western United States, including two locations at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and sites in Utah, Arizona, and California.

The Starliners undocking, re-entry, and landing is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 5. On that date, the primary landing site will be at White Sands.

If the OFT-2 mission achieves all its objectives, Boeing and NASA officials will look for opportunities toward the end of the year to launch the Starliner Crew Flight Test. That mission, which also launch on an Atlas 5 rocket, will carry NASA astronauts Barry Butch Wilmore, Mike Fincke, and Nicole Mann to the International Space Station.

The Atlas 5 first stage and Centaur upper stage for the Crew Flight Test arrived Sunday at Port Canaveral after riding ULAs transport ship from a factory in Decatur, Alabama.

Ground crews unloaded the rocket stages from the vessel Monday to begin launch processing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The OFT-2 mission will use the Atlas 5 rocket originally assigned to the Crew Flight Test.

If the piloted demonstration flight goes well, NASA will clear Boeing for the first of its six operational crew rotation missions to the space station in 2022.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Starliner capsule fueled for unpiloted test flight to International Space Station Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

Dozens of baby squid from Hawaii are aboard the International Space Station, for a study which scientists hope can help bolster human health during long space missions.

The baby Hawaiian bobtail squid were raised at the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii, then blasted into space earlier this month on a SpaceX resupply mission.

Researcher Jamie Foster, who completed her doctorate at the University of Hawaii, is studying how spaceflight affects the squid, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The squid have a symbiotic relationship with natural bacteria that help regulate their bioluminescence. When an astronaut is in low gravity their bodys relationship with microbes changes, said University of Hawaii professor Margaret McFall-Ngai, who Foster studied under in the 1990s.

We have found that the symbiosis of humans with their microbes is perturbed in microgravity, and Jamie has shown that is true in squid, said McFall-Ngai. And, because its a simple system, she can get to the bottom of whats going wrong.

Foster is now a professor in Florida and principal investigator for a Nasa program that researches how microgravity affects the interactions between animals and microbes.

As astronauts spend more and more time in space, their immune systems become whats called dysregulated. It doesnt function as well, Foster said. Their immune systems dont recognize bacteria as easily. They sometimes get sick.

Foster said understanding what happens to the squid in space could help solve such problems.

There are aspects of the immune system that just dont work properly under long-duration spaceflights, she said. If humans want to spend time on the moon or Mars, we have to solve health problems to get them there safely.

The Kewalo Marine Laboratory breeds the squid for research projects around the world. The tiny animals are plentiful in Hawaiian waters and are about 3in long as adults. The squid will come back to Earth in July.

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Dozens of Hawaiian baby squid aboard space station for study - The Guardian

Baby Hawaiian bobtail squid. (Photo credit: Margaret McFall-Ngai)

More than 120 baby Hawaiian bobtail squid born from a mother squid collected at Maunalua Bay were sent to the International Space Station in June to help scientists understand how astronauts health is affected during long space missions. The squid were launched into space as part of NASAs SpaceX 22nd resupply mission and are scheduled to return in July.

Jamie Foster, a University of Hawaii Kewalo Marine Laboratory alumna who completed her doctorate in 2000 under the guidance of UH Professor Margaret McFall-Ngai, a professor at the University of Florida, and principal investigator for a NASA research program Understanding of Microgravity on Animal-Microbe Interactions (UMAMI), will be investigating how squids are affected by spaceflight.

The goal of the UMAMI project is to better understand the effects of microgravity, or spaceflight, on the beneficial interactions between animals and microbes, said Foster. Beneficial interactions with microbes are critical for animal health. Studying the bobtail squid helps us understand fundamental ways bacteria initiate relationships with their animal hosts.

Hawaiian bobtail squids have one host and one microbial species, in comparison to humans, which have one host and more than 1,000 microbial species. When baby squid are born, they pick out their symbiont (the bacteria they partner with), and that partner has to drive the development of the tissues it associates with and has to stay in balance to keep animals healthy. This process is the same in humans.

Foster is trying to determine how the squids symbiont-induced development is perturbed in space, to help address health problems that astronauts face during long space missions, such as compromised immune systems and the potential for microbes to become more pathogenic.

We know that when astronauts go to space, it is not uncommon at all for them to have immune problems, and changes to their microbiota, said McFall-Ngai, who has been studying squid since 1989. You have microbes that keep you healthy on your skin and in your digestive system, and there is something about microgravity that disturbs that balance. In sending these squid into space, Jamie hopes to find basic evolutionarily conserved principles that can be applied to the human microbiome.

McFall-Ngai learned of the Hawaiian bobtail squid as a graduate student, and has spent her professional career of more than 30 years studying the species.

This particular little squid lends itself to studying symbiosis everywhere from ecology and evolutionary biology all the way up to molecular mechanisms, said McFall-Ngai. You can do just about any level of biology with this animal.

Today, there are many labs across the U.S. and Europe that study squid-vibrio symbiosis, all of which have originated out of UH.

The community we have is very tightly woven, added McFall-Ngai. Jamie got her degree at the University of Hawaii, she comes here often, and she works with the people here and other academics who have come through UH. Hawaii is like the nexus, the center, of the studies.

I first thought of the idea for UMAMI while a graduate student at UH, added Foster. My work with Dr. Margaret McFall-Ngai showed me the importance of beneficial microbes in animal health, but there were no comparable studies being done in the field of space biology. I thought the Hawaiian bobtail squid would be a perfect model organism for this type of spaceflight research. It took 10 years before the first squid went to space in 2011 and another 10 years for the UMAMI mission, but each mission builds on the previous research, and I hope there will be more opportunities for this UMAMI mission to continue.

This research is an example of UH Mnoas goal of Excellence in Research: Advancing the Research and Creative Work Enterprise (PDF), one of four goals identified in the 201525 Strategic Plan (PDF), updated in December 2020.

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Squids in space! Hawaiian squid tied to UH lab visits space station | University of Hawaii System News - UH System Current News