While the International Space Station traveled more than 267 miles over the South Atlantic Ocean, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft docked autonomously at the port in front of the station’s Harmony module at 11:21 a.m. EDT today, with NASA astronauts Bob Hines and Jessica. Watkins monitoring operations from the station.
The Dragon launched on SpaceX’s 25th contracted commercial refueling mission for NASA at 8:44 p.m., Thursday, July 14, from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After the Dragon spends about a month attached to the space station, the spacecraft returns to Earth with the charge and search.
Among the scientific experiments that Dragon will provide to the space station are:
Earth Dust Cartography
The Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, employs NASA’s imaging spectroscopy technology to measure the mineral composition of dust in arid regions of the Earth. Mineral dust blown into the air can travel significant distances and influence the Earth’s climate, climate, vegetation and more. For example, dust that contains dark minerals that absorb sunlight can drop an area, while light-colored mineral dust can cool down. Dust blowing also affects air quality, surface conditions such as snow melting rate, and phytoplankton health in the ocean. The survey collected images for a year to generate maps of the mineral composition in the dust-producing regions of the Earth. Such mapping could advance our knowledge of the effects of mineral dust on human populations now and in the future.
Aging faster than the immune system
The former is associated with changes in the immune response known as immunosenescence. Microgravity causes changes in human immune cells that resemble this condition, but occur faster than the actual aging process on Earth. The Immunosenescence research, sponsored by the U.S. International Space Station’s National Laboratory, uses tissue chips to study how microgravity affects immune function during flight and whether immune cells recover after flight. Tissue chips are small devices that contain human cells in a 3D structure, allowing scientists to test how those cells respond to stress, drugs, and genetic changes.
Earth in space
On Earth, complex communities of microorganisms perform key functions in the soil, including the carbon cycle and other nutrients and support plant growth. Dynamics of Microbiomes in Space sponsored by NASA’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences, examines how microgravity affects metabolic interactions in communities of terrestrial microbes. This research focuses on the microbial communities that break down chitin, a natural carbon polymer on Earth.
Study the time of high school students
BeaverCube is an educational mission that will teach high school students the aerospace science that makes them design a CubeSat. BeaverCube will house a visible and two infrared imager to measure cloud properties, ocean surface temperature and ocean color to study the Earth’s climate and climate systems. It will also demonstrate an application for the use of shape memory alloying technology via an in-orbit calibration technique.
Genes, no cells
Cell-free technology is a platform for the production of specialized equipment-free protection of living cells to be cultured. Genes in Space-9, sponsored by the National Laboratory, demonstrates cell-free production of proteins in microgravity and evaluates two cell-free biosensors that can detect specific target molecules. This technology could provide a simple, portable and low-cost tool for medical diagnostics, on-demand production of medicines and vaccines, and environmental monitoring in future space missions.
Better ConcreteBiopolymer Research for In-Situ Capabilities sees how microgravity affects the process of creating a concrete alternative made with an organic material and in situ materials, such as lunar or Martian powder, known as biopolymer soil composite. Using the available resources where construction is done allows you to increase the amount of shielding.
