BREVARD COUNTY, Fla – Tuesday’s Falcon 9 launch to the International Space Station included one interesting passenger – a microbiology experiment from the University of Florida.
NASA, Northrop Grumman and SpaceX teamed up to send the cargo mission to the ISS in the Cygnus cargo spacecraft with over 8,200 pounds of supplies into orbit.
Recommended Videos
Kelly Rice, a researcher and University of Florida associate professor, told News 6 that the experiment will look at how staph infections behave in microgravity.
[EXCLUSIVE: Become a News 6 Insider (it’s FREE) | PINIT! Share your photos]
“Having our science fly for the first time ever was very, very exciting and the culmination of a couple years of work on this grant that we’ve gotten from NASA to fund this work, and so yes, now it’s like Christmas,” Rice said. “The moment is here and now we have to wait for the astronauts to initiate the experiment and then we’ll take it from there.”
She hopes NASA can use the results of this study to protect astronauts on missions to the moon and prevent the spread of bacterial infections in hospitals here on Earth.
“The astronauts are never actually exposed to the bacteria directly so they’re in a closed system,” Rice said. “And it’s really interesting because this hardware we basically send the bacteria dried as dried spots on a plastic pitri dish and then there’s a separate chamber for media that the astronauts can inject into the plate using an apparatus that’s outside of the system. So, they’re never actually in direct contact at all with the bacteria.”
According to NASA, some of the other highlights of the research aboard the ISS included:
- The first surgical robot on the space station
- An orbit re-entry platform that collects thermal protection systems data
- A 3D cartilage cell culture that maintains healthy cartilage in lower gravity settings
- The MSTIC facility, which is an autonomous semiconductor manufacturing platform
- A metal 3D printer to test the capability for printing small metal parts
The spacecraft is expected to arrive at the ISS on Thursday, Feb. 1. It’s the 20th mission for Northrup Grumman to the station.
Get today’s headlines in minutes with Your Florida Daily: