An International
Space Station investigation called BCAT-CS studies dynamic forces between
sediment particles that cluster together.
For the study, scientists sent mixtures of quartz and clay particles to the space
station and subjected them to various levels of simulated gravity.
Conducting the experiment in microgravity makes it possible to separate out different forces that act on sediments and look at the function of
each.
Sediment systems of quartz and clay occur many places on Earth, including rivers,
lakes, and oceans, and affect many
activities, from deep-sea hydrocarbon drilling to carbon sequestration.
Understanding how
sediments behave has a range of applications on Earth, including predicting and mitigating erosion, improving water
treatment, modeling the carbon cycle,
sequestering contaminants and more accurately finding deep sea oil
reservoirs.
It also may provide insight for future studies of the
geology of new and unexplored planets.
Gravity rules everything on Earth, from how our bodies develop to what our research can reveal, but what happens when we go 250 miles up to the International Space Station?
Get ready to go behind the scenes of what it takes to get science to space, and meet the people who make it happen.
Introducing Season 4 of NASA Explorers: Microgravity. Floating isn’t just fun. Microgravity could open the door to discovery.
You’ve seen things floating in space, but why does that happen and how does it affect science being conducted aboard the International Space Station?
Microgravity makes the International Space Station the perfect place to perform research that is changing the lives of people on Earth, and preparing us to go deeper into space. This season on our series NASA Explorers, we are following science into low-Earth orbit and seeing what it takes to do research aboard the space station.
NASA’s Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and their partners around the
world are excited to initiate new, high-value biological research in low-Earth
orbit.
The Japanese rocket, hauling the
research facility and other cargo via the HTV-7 transfer vehicle, successfully
lifted off at
1:52 p.m. EDT
from Tanegashima Space Center off the coast of
Japan.
Its launch marks a first for hauling
bulky equipment to space. Roughly the size of a large fish
tank, the Life Sciences Glovebox comes
in at 26 inches high, 35 inches wide and 24 inches deep, with 15 cubic feet of
available workspace.
“The Life Sciences Glovebox
is on its way to the space station to enable a host of biological and
physiological studies, including new research into microgravity’s
long-term impact on the human body,” said Yancy Young, project manager at Marshall. “This
versatile facility not only will help us better protect human explorers on long
voyages into deep space, but it could aid medical and scientific advances
benefiting the whole world.”
Boeing engineers at Marshall modified a
refrigerator-freezer rack to house the core facility, using state-of-the-art,
3D-printing technology to custom design key pieces of the rack to secure the
unit in its protective foam clamshell.
NASA is now determining the roster of science
investigations lined up to make use of the facility, beginning as early as late
2018. “We’ve already got more than a dozen glovebox experiments scheduled
in 2019, with many more to follow,” said Chris Butler, payload integration manager for the glovebox at
Marshall.
The Life Sciences Glovebox will
be transferred to a zero-gravity stowage rack in the station’s Kibo
module, where up to two crew members can conduct experiments simultaneously,
overseen in real-time by project researchers on Earth.
Before research can get on a rocket to head to space, it is carefully prepared at Kennedy Space Center.
Scientists sometimes spend days, or even weeks, doing all of the last-minute preparations to get their investigation ready for microgravity.
This week on NASA Explorers, we follow a team of researchers in the final days before their experiment gets loaded into a SpaceX Dragon capsule that will carry their research to the space station.
A growing number of commercial partners use the International Space Station National Lab. With that growth, we will see more discoveries in fundamental and applied research that could improve life on the ground.
Space Station astronaut Kate Rubins was the first person to sequence DNA in microgravity.
Since 2011, when we engaged the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to manage the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab, CASIS has partnered with academic researchers, other government organizations, startups and major commercial companies to take advantage of the unique microgravity lab. Today, more than 50 percent of CASIS’ experiments on the station represent commercial research.
Here’s a look at five ways the ISS National Lab is enabling new opportunities for commercial research in space.
1. Supporting Commercial Life Sciences Research
One of the main areas of focus for us in the early origins of the space station program was life sciences, and it is still a major priority today. Studying the effects of microgravity on astronauts provides insight into human physiology, and how it evolves or erodes in space. CASIS took this knowledge and began robust outreach to the pharmaceutical community, which could now take advantage of the microgravity environment on the ISS National Lab to develop and enhance therapies for patients on Earth. Companies such as Merck, Eli Lilly & Company, and Novartis have sent several experiments to the station, including investigations aimed at studying diseases such as osteoporosis, and examining ways to enhance drug tablets for increased potency to help patients on Earth. These companies are trailblazers for many other life science companies that are looking at how the ISS National Lab can advance their research efforts.
2. Enabling Commercial Investigations in Material and Physical Sciences
Over the past few years, CASIS and the ISS National Lab also have seen a major push toward material and physical sciences research by companies interested in enhancing their products for consumers. Examples range from Proctor and Gamble’s investigation aimed at increasing the longevity of daily household products, to Milliken’s flame-retardant textile investigation to improve protective clothing for individuals in harm’s way, and companies looking to enhance materials for household appliances. Additionally, CASIS has been working with a variety of companies to improve remote sensing capabilities in order to better monitor our oceans, predict harmful algal blooms, and ultimately, to better understand our planet from a vantage point roughly 250 miles above Earth.
3. Supporting Startup Companies Interested in Microgravity Research
CASIS has funded a variety of investigations with small startup companies (in particular through seed funding and grant funding from partnerships and funded solicitations) to leverage the ISS National Lab for both research and test-validation model experiments. CASIS and The Boeing Company recently partnered with MassChallenge, the largest startup accelerator in the world, to fund three startup companies to conduct microgravity research.
4. Enabling Validation of Low-Earth Orbit Business Models
The ISS National Lab helps validate low-Earth orbit business models. Companies such as NanoRacks, Space Tango, Made In Space, Techshot, and Controlled Dynamics either have been funded by CASIS or have sent instruments to the ISS National Lab that the research community can use, and that open new channels for inquiry. This has allowed the companies that operate these facilities to validate their business models, while also building for the future beyond station.
5. Demonstrating the Commercial Value of Space-based Research
We have been a key partner in working with CASIS to demonstrate to American businesses the value of conducting research in space. Through outreach events such as our Destination Station, where representatives from the International Space Station Program Science Office and CASIS select cities with several major companies and meet with the companies to discuss how they could benefit from space-based research. Over the past few years, this outreach has proven to be a terrific example of building awareness on the benefits of microgravity research.
On Dec 5. 2019, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying a Dragon cargo capsule filled with dozens of scientific experiments. Those experiments look at everything from malting barley in microgravity to the spread of fire.
Not only are the experiments helping us better understand life in space, they also are giving us a better picture of our planet and benefiting humanity back on Earth.
📸 A Better Picture of Earth 🌏
Every material on the Earth’s surface – soil, rocks, vegetation, snow, ice and human-made objects – reflects a unique spectrum of light. The Hyperspectral Imager Suite (HISUI) takes advantage of this to identify specific materials in an image. It could be useful for tasks such as resource exploration and applications in agriculture, forestry and other environmental areas.
🌱 Malting Barley in Microgravity 🌱
Many studies of plants in space focus on how they grow in microgravity. The Malting ABI Voyager Barley Seeds in Microgravity experiment is looking at a different aspect of plants in space: the malting process. Malting converts starches from grain into various sugars that can be used for brewing, distilling and food production. The study compares malt produced in space and on the ground for genetic and structural changes, and aims to identify ways to adapt it for nutritional use on spaceflights.
🛰️ A First for Mexico 🛰️
AztechSat-1, the first satellite built by students in Mexico for launch from the space station, is smaller than a shoebox but represents a big step for its builders. Students from a multidisciplinary team at Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla in Puebla, Mexico, built the CubeSat. This investigation demonstrates communication within a satellite network in low-Earth orbit. Such communication could reduce the need for ground stations, lowering the cost and increasing the number of data downloads possible for satellite applications.
🚀 Checking for Leaks 🚀
Nobody wants a spacecraft to spring a leak – but if it happens, the best thing you can do is locate and fix it, fast. That’s why we launched the first Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) in 2015. Operators can use RELL to quickly detect leaks outside of station and help engineers formulate a plan to resolve an issue. On this latest commercial resupply mission, we launched the Robotic Tool Stowage (RiTS), a docking station that allows the RELL units to be stored on the outside of space station, making it quicker and simpler to deploy the instruments.
🔥 The Spread of Fire 🔥
Understanding how fire spreads in space is crucial for the safety of future astronauts and for controlling fire here on Earth. The Confined Combustion investigation examines the behavior of flame as it spreads in differently-shaped spaces in microgravity. Studying flames in microgravity gives researchers a chance to look at the underlying physics and basic principles of combustion by removing gravity from the equation.
💪 Staying Strong 💪
Here on Earth you might be told to drink milk to grow up with strong bones, but in space, you need a bit more than that. Astronauts in space have to exercise for hours a day to prevent substantial bone and muscle loss. A new experiment, Rodent Research-19, is seeing if there is another way to prevent the loss by targeting signaling pathways in your body at the molecular level. The results could also support treatments for a wide range of conditions that cause muscle and bone loss back here on Earth.
Today we roll out a new communications project that highlights some of the many ways that NASA’s Earth observations help people strengthen communities across the United States.
Space for U.S. features stories on how Earth science data is used to make informed decisions about public health, disaster response and recovery and environmental protection. By highlighting advanced technology from a global perspective, our data helps provide people achieve groundbreaking insights.
For example, a family-owned coffee company in Maine used our sunlight, wind and temperature data to determine the placement of their power-generating solar wall.
For six decades, we’ve used the vantage point of space to better understand our home planet and improve lives. Using Space for U.S., you can browse through stories about how applied Earth science either by state or by topics such as animals, disasters, energy, health, land and water. Each click brings you a story about how people are putting NASA data to work.
Explore the true stories behind the innovative technology, groundbreaking insights, and extraordinary collaboration happening right here in the United States with Space for U.S.
LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.
4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA
Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.