SpaceX - Dragon CRS-20 Mission patch.
March 9, 2020
Image above: The 20th SpaceX Dragon resupply mission approaches the space station. Image Credit: NASA.
While the International Space Station was traveling more than 262 miles over the Northeast Pacific near Vancouver, British Columbia, Expedition 62 Flight Engineer Jessica Meir of NASA grappled Dragon at 6:25 a.m. EDT using the space station’s robotic arm Canadarm2 with NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan acting as a backup.
SpaceX CRS-20 Dragon capture
Ground controllers will now send commands to begin the robotic installation of the spacecraft on bottom of the station’s Harmony module.
SpaceX CRS-20 Dragon berthing
Here’s some of the research arriving at station:
New Facility Outside the Space Station
The Bartolomeo facility, created by ESA (European Space Agency) and Airbus, attaches to the exterior of the European Columbus Module. Designed to provide new scientific opportunities on the outside of the space station for commercial and institutional users, the facility offers unobstructed views both toward Earth and into space. Potential applications include Earth observation, robotics, material science and astrophysics.
Studying the Human Intestine On a Chip
Organ-Chips as a Platform for Studying Effects of Space on Human Enteric Physiology (Gut on Chip) examines the effect of microgravity and other space-related stress factors on biotechnology company Emulate’s human innervated Intestine-Chip (hiIC). This Organ-Chip device enables the study of organ physiology and diseases in a laboratory setting. It allows for automated maintenance, including imaging, sampling, and storage on orbit and data downlink for molecular analysis on Earth.
Growing Human Heart Cells
Generation of Cardiomyocytes From Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Cardiac Progenitors Expanded in Microgravity (MVP Cell-03) examines whether microgravity increases the production of heart cells from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). The investigation induces stem cells to generate heart precursor cells and cultures those cells on the space station to analyze and compare with cultures grown on Earth.
Related article:
SpaceX Dragon Heads to Space Station with NASA Science, Cargo
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/03/spacex-dragon-heads-to-space-station.html
Related links:
Bartolomeo: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7799
Gut on Chip: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=8078
MVP Cell-03: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7725
Commercial Resupply Services: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/index.html
International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Image (mentioned), Videos, Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia/NASA TV/SciNews.
Best regards, Orbiter.ch
