Hubble Discovers Mysterious Black Hole Disc

ESA - Hubble Space Telescope logo.

11 July 2019

Artist’s impression of NGC3147 black hole disc

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed an unexpected thin disc of material encircling a supermassive black hole at the heart of the spiral galaxy NGC 3147, located 130 million light-years away.

The presence of the black hole disc in such a low-luminosity active galaxy has astronomers surprised. Black holes in certain types of galaxies such as NGC 3147 are considered to be starving as there is insufficient gravitationally captured material to feed them regularly. It is therefore puzzling that there is a thin disc encircling a starving black hole that mimics the much larger discs found in extremely active galaxies.

Top-Down view of artist’s impression of NGC3147 black hole disc

Of particular interest, this disc of material circling the black hole offers a unique opportunity to test Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity. The disc is so deeply embedded in the black hole’s intense gravitational field that the light from the gas disc is altered, according to these theories, giving astronomers a unique peek at the dynamic processes close to a black hole.

“We’ve never seen the effects of both general and special relativity in visible light with this much clarity,” said team member Marco Chiaberge of AURA for ESA, STScI and Johns Hopkins Univeristy.

Galaxy NGC 3147

The disc’s material was measured by Hubble to be whirling around the black hole at more than 10% of the speed of light. At such extreme velocities, the gas appears to brighten as it travels toward Earth on one side, and dims as it speeds away from our planet on the other. This effect is known as relativistic beaming. Hubble’s observations also show that the gas is embedded so deep in a gravitational well that light is struggling to escape, and therefore appears stretched to redder wavelengths. The black hole’s mass is around 250 million times that of the Sun.

“This is an intriguing peek at a disc very close to a black hole, so close that the velocities and the intensity of the gravitational pull are affecting how we see the photons of light,” explained the study’s first author, Stefano Bianchi, of Università degli Studi Roma Tre in Italy.

Artist’s Impression of NGC3147 black hole disc

In order to study the matter swirling deep inside this disc, the researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) instrument. This diagnostic tool divides the light from an object into its many individual wavelengths to determine the object's speed, temperature, and other characteristics at very high precision. STIS was integral to effectively observing the low-luminosity region around the black hole, blocking out the galaxy’s brilliant light.

The astronomers initially selected this galaxy to validate accepted models about lower-luminosity active galaxies: those with malnourished black holes. These models predict that discs of material should form when ample amounts of gas are trapped by a black hole’s strong gravitational pull, subsequently emitting lots of light and producing a brilliant beacon called a quasar.

Top-Down View of Artist’s Impression of NGC3147 black hole disc

“The type of disc we see is a scaled-down quasar that we did not expect to exist,” Bianchi explained. “It’s the same type of disc we see in objects that are 1000 or even 100 000 times more luminous. The predictions of current models for very faint active galaxies clearly failed.”

The team hopes to use Hubble to hunt for other very compact discs around low-luminosity black holes in similar active galaxies.

 Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

More information:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

The team’s paper will appear in the journal the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: https://academic.oup.com/mnras

The international team of astronomers in this study consists of Stefano Bianchi (Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy), Robert Antonucci (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA), Alessandro Capetti (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Italy), Marco Chiaberge (Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA), Ari Laor (Israel Institute of Technology, Israel), Loredana Bassani (INAF/IASF Bologna, Italy), Francisco J. Carrera (CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria, Spain), Fabio La Franca (Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy), Andrea Marinucci (Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy), Giorgio Matt1 (Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy), Riccardo Middei (Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre, Italy), Francesca Panessa (INAF Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Italy).

Links:

Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images of Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/

Hubblesite release: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2019/news-2019-35

INAF release: https://www.media.inaf.it/2019/07/11/disco-buco-nero-hst/

Science Paper: https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/article/488/1/L1/5522653

Images, Videos, Animation, Text, Credits: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser/NASA, A. Riess et al./Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Universita` degli Studi Roma Tre/Stefano Bianchi/ESA/Hubble/Bethany Downer.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Flight VV15: Mission failure

Arianespace - Vega Flight VV15 Mission poster.

11 July 2019

Arianespace announced today, 11 July, 2019, the failure of Flight VV15 carrying the FalconEye1 satellite. This was the first Vega failure after 14 successful launches in a row since being introduced at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana in 2012.

VV15 launch pad

The Vega launch vehicle lifted off as scheduled on July 10, 2019 at 10:53 pm (local time in French Guiana). Approximately two minutes after the Vega launcher’s liftoff, shortly after ignition of the second stage (Zefiro 23), a launcher anomaly occurred – leading to the premature end of the mission.

Vega failed launch with FalconEye1

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace immediately decided to appoint an independent inquiry commission. This commission is tasked with analysing the reasons for the failure and defining the measures needed to ensure the resumption of Vega flights while fulfilling all requisite safety and security conditions. The inquiry commission is co-chaired by the Inspector General of ESA and the Senior Vice President, Technical and Quality of Arianespace.

Preparations for the next Ariane 5 launch are continuing at the Guiana Space Centre, Europe's Spaceport.

Related links:

Vega: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Transportation/Launch_vehicles/Vega

Arianespace: http://www.arianespace.com/

Image, Video, Text, Credits: European Space Agency (ESA)/Arianespace/SciNews.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Crew Configures Hardware to Monitor Brain and Radiation Exposure in Space

ISS - Expedition 60 Mission patch.

July 10, 2019

The Expedition 60 crew configured a variety of science hardware today monitoring the brain and radiation exposure. The orbital residents also had a steady day of safety gear checks and lab maintenance on the International Space Station.

Astronauts experience blood flow changes caused by living in microgravity that may cause lightheadedness or fainting upon return to Earth. The Cerebral Autoregulation investigation is measuring the waveforms of these blood flows to understand blood pressure regulation in space. Flight Engineer Nick Hague set up the experiment hardware this morning that may help doctors treat and prevent these symptoms.

Image above: The International Space Station was orbiting 258 miles above the Bay of Bengal during an orbital nighttime when this photograph was taken of Earth’s luminous atmospheric glow back-dropped by the tranquil Milky Way. Image Credit: NASA.

Hague next assembled hardware for a high definition camera that will be installed outside the station on an upcoming spacewalk. He and NASA astronaut Christina Koch also installed communication cables and conducted voice checks to support the arrival of future commercial crew vehicles.

International Space Station (ISS)

Radiation exposure is another concern for crewmembers working in space for months or years at a time. Koch handed a set of dosimeters, or radiation detectors, to Commander Alexey Ovchinin during the afternoon for installation on the Russian side of the orbiting lab. Several studies are monitoring neutron radiation and the variation in the radiation environment as the station orbits Earth.

Koch started her morning inspecting breathing masks and fire extinguishers. She checked the emergency equipment for correct pressure measurements and any signs of physical damage on hoses and bottles. Ovchinin continued the replacement of more Russian life support system components during his morning.

Related links:

Expedition 60: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition60/index.html

Cerebral Autoregulation: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1938

Neutron radiation: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/search.html?#q=radi-n&i=&p=&c=&g=&s=

Variation in the radiation environment: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/search.html?#q=matroyshka&i=&p=&c=&g=&s=

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Satellites Find Biggest Seaweed Bloom in the World

NASA - EOS Terra Mission patch / NASA - EOS Aqua Mission patch.

July 9, 2019

An unprecedented belt of brown algae stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico—and it’s likely here to stay. Scientists at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg's College of Marine Science used NASA satellite observations to discover and document the largest bloom of macroalgae in the world, dubbed the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, as reported in Science.

Based on computer simulations, they confirmed that this belt of the brown macroalgae Sargassum forms its shape in response to ocean currents. It can grow so large that it blankets the surface of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. In 2018, more than 20 million tons of it – heavier than 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers – floated in surface waters and became a problem to shorelines lining the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and east coast of Florida, as it carpeted popular beach destinations and crowded coastal waters.

Image above: Too much Sargassum can present challenges for marine life and particularly becomes a problem when it collects along coastlines and rots, as shown here in Cancun in 2015. Image Credits: Michael Owen.

“The scale of these blooms is truly enormous, making global satellite imagery a good tool for detecting and tracking their dynamics through time,” said Woody Turner, manager of the Ecological Forecasting Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Chuanmin Hu of the USF College of Marine Science, who led the study, has studied Sargassum using satellites since 2006. Hu spearheaded the work with first author Dr. Mengqiu Wang, a postdoctoral scholar in his Optical Oceanography Lab at USF. The team included others from USF, Florida Atlantic University, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The data they analyzed from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) between 2000-2018 indicates a possible regime shift in Sargassum blooms since 2011.

In the satellite imagery, major blooms occurred in every year between 2011 and 2018 except 2013. This information, coupled with field measurements, suggests that no bloom occurred in 2013 because the seed populations of Sargassum measured during winter of 2012 were unusually low, Wang said.

Images above: (Left) An unhealthy amount of Sargassum off Big Pine Key in the lower Florida Keys. Credit: Brian Lapointe, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (Right) In patchy doses in the open ocean, Sargassum contributes to ocean health by providing habitat for marine life. Dr. Mengqiu Wang was performing field work in the Gulf of Mexico last year when she saw dolphins seeming to enjoy their foray through the Sargassum. Images Credit: Mengqiu Wang.

Before 2011, most of the free floating Sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in patches around the Gulf of Mexico and Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is located on the western edge of the central Atlantic Ocean and named after its popular algal resident. In patchy doses in the open ocean, Sargassum contributes to ocean health by providing habitat for turtles, crabs, fish, and birds and, like other plants, producing oxygen via photosynthesis. But too much of this seaweed can crowd out marine species, especially near the coast.

In 2011, Sargassum populations started to explode in places it hadn’t been before, like the central Atlantic Ocean, and then it arrived in gargantuan gobs that suffocated shorelines and introduced a new nuisance for local environments and economies.

“The ocean’s chemistry must have changed in order for the blooms to get so out of hand,” Hu said. Sargassum reproduces from fragments of the parent plant, and it probably has several initiation zones around the Atlantic Ocean. It grows faster when nutrient conditions are favorable, and when its internal clock ticks in favor of reproduction.

The team identified key factors that are critical to bloom formation: a large seed population in the winter left over from a previous bloom, nutrient input from West Africa upwelling in winter, and nutrient input in the spring or summer from the Amazon River. Such discharged nutrients may have increased in recent years due to increased deforestation and fertilizer use, though Hu noted that the evidence for nutrient enrichment is preliminary and based on limited available data, and the team needs more research to confirm this hypothesis. In addition, Sargassum only grows well when salinity is normal and surface temperatures are normal or cooler.

Image above: The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt in July 2018.Scientists used NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua satellites to discover the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB), which started in 2011. It has occurred every year since, except 2013, and often stretches from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. Image Credits: NASA/Earth Observatory. Data provided by Mengqiu Wang and Chuanmin Hu, USF College of Marine Science.

“Earth’s ocean biogeochemistry is changing in response to natural and human forcings. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt suggests that we may be witnessing ecosystem shifts in our ocean that could have important implications for marine organisms and ecosystem services, which humans depend on,” said Dr. Paula Bontempi, who manages NASA’s Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program and serves as acting deputy director of NASA’s Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters.

"This is all ultimately related to climate change, as climate affects precipitation and ocean circulation and even human activities [that can lead to Sargassum blooms], but what we’ve shown is that these blooms do not occur because of increased water temperature,” Hu said. “They are probably here to stay.”

This work was funded by several programs in NASA’s Earth Science Division, NOAA RESTORE Science Program, the JPSS/NOAA Cal/Val project, the National Science Foundation, and by a William and Elsie Knight Endowed Fellowship.

Related links:

Aqua Satellite: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/aqua/index.html

Terra Satellite: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/index.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Sara Blumberg/Earth Science News Team, by Ellen Gray.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Not-Unsolved Mysteries: The “Lost” Apollo 11 Tapes

NASA - Apollo 11 patch.

July 9, 2019

With the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing approaching, reports have resurfaced that NASA lost some precious video footage of that first moonwalk.

Image above: Buz Aldrin assembles seismic experiment. Image Credits: NASA/Apollo 11.

Before diving into the details of two distinct events that seem to have become conflated, it’s worth emphasizing three key points:

- NASA searched for but could not locate some of the original Apollo 11 data tapes – “original” in the sense that they directly recorded data transmitted from the Moon. An intensive search of archives and records concluded that the most likely scenario was that the program managers determined there was no longer a need to keep the tapes — since all the video was recorded elsewhere — and they were erased and reused.

- The data on those tapes, including video data, was relayed to the Manned Spacecraft Center (now the Johnson Space Center), during the mission. The video was recorded there and in other locations; there is no missing video footage from the Apollo 11 moonwalk.

- The search discovered high-quality broadcast versions of the footage. NASA worked with Lowry Digital, a premier film restoration company, to process the video using techniques unavailable in 1969. The restored video was released in HD as part of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.

Further explanation means diving into the details of how Apollo sent data back to Earth and how NASA collected it.

Data from the Apollo 11 mission was sent from the spacecraft to three ground stations, one in California and two in Australia, which retransmitted it to the Manned Space Flight Center in Houston. The ground stations also recorded the data on special 1-inch, 14-track tapes, one track of which was for video. The video footage was recorded in "slow scan" — 10 video frames per second — which meant it couldn't be directly broadcast over commercial television. The video was converted for broadcast and uplinked to a satellite, then downlinked to Houston, from which it was sent out to the world.

In early 2005, responding to inquiries from NASA retirees and others, NASA began a search for the 14-track data tapes. Ultimately, the agency couldn’t find the tapes and determined that they had most likely been erased and used again, which was standard practice at the time. The search, led by NASA engineer Dick Nafzger, focused on finding the specific tapes, knowing the data had all been recorded and saved elsewhere.

"There was no video that came down slow scan that was not converted live, fed live, to Houston and fed live to the world," Nafzger said at press conference showing some of the restored footage in 2009. "So, just in case anyone thinks there is video out there that hasn’t been seen, that is not the case."

NASA News Briefing on Restored Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video - Clip 1

Video above: July 16, 2009 press conference on the search for and restoration of the Apollo 11 video. Video Credit: NASA.

During the search, though, Nafzger's team came across video that had been converted to broadcast which was much higher quality than what they had been seeing.

“The team of people that I worked with, including myself obviously, was desperate to do something for history, if we could," said Nafzger. "We came across broadcast-converted tapes during this search that were much better than we had seen. . . . We had tapes recorded in Sydney, Australia, during the mission. (We) found kinescopes at the National Archives that had not been viewed in 36 years that were made in Houston. We went to CBS archives and we found tapes that had been fed directly from Houston to CBS . .. . the raw data as recorded and archived.”

NASA News Briefing on Restored Apollo 11 Moonwalk Video - Clip 2

Video above: Working with a California company, NASA restored portions of the video and enhanced it for viewing in high definition and released the HD Apollo 11 videos in July 2009. Video Credit: NASA.

In 2019, a one-time NASA intern is selling what he describes as videotapes of the Apollo 11 moonwalk that he bought at an auction of surplus government goods. If the tapes are as described in the sale material, they are 2-inch videotapes recorded in Houston from the video that had been converted to a format that could be broadcast over commercial television and contain no material that hasn't been preserved at NASA.

Related links:

NASA began a search for the 14-track data tapes: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo_tapes.html

Press conference showing some of the restored footage in 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McyghW9rSIU

HD Apollo 11 videos: https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/hd/apollo11_hdpage.html

Apollo 11: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/apollo-11.html

Image (mentioned), Videos (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Brian Dunbar.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA Maps Surface Changes From California Quakes

ARIA - Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis logo.

July 9, 2019

Image above: NASA's Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team created this co-seismic Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) map, which shows surface displacement caused by the recent major earthquakes in Southern California, including the magnitude 6.4 and the magnitude 7.1 events on July 4 and July 5, 2019, respectively. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Damage from two strong earthquakes that rattled Southern California on July 4 and July 5 — a magnitude 6.4 and a magnitude 7.1, respectively — can be seen from space. The epicenter of the quakes was near the city of Ridgecrest, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northeast of Los Angeles. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the 7.1 quake was one of the largest to hit the region in some 40 years.

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the ALOS-2 satellite to produce a map showing surface displacement from the earthquakes. The post-quake imagery was acquired on July 8, 2019, and compared with April 8, 2018, data from the same region.

Each color cycle represents 4.8 inches (12 centimeters) of ground displacement either toward or away from the satellite. The linear features that cut the color fringes in the southeast indicate likely locations of surface rupture caused by the earthquakes, and the "noisy" areas in the northwest may indicate locations where the ground surface was disturbed by them.

The USGS reported over 1,000 aftershocks in the region following the July 5 earthquake. State and federal scientists, including those from the California Geological Survey and USGS, are using this surface deformation map in the field for assessing the damages and mapping the faults that broke during the two major earthquakes as well as the thousands of aftershocks.

In the aftermath of the earthquakes, NASA's Earth Science Disasters Program is in communication with the California Earthquake Clearinghouse, which is coordinating response efforts with the California Air National Guard, the USGS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. NASA analysts are using data from satellites to produce visualizations of land deformation and potential landslides, among other earthquake impacts, and are making them available to response agencies. NASA's Disasters Program promotes the use of satellite observations in predicting, preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters around the world.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) provided the ALOS-2 data for the production of the map. The ARIA team's analysis was funded by NASA's Disasters Program.

For more information about ARIA, visit: http://aria.jpl.nasa.gov

For more information about NASA's Disasters Program, visit: http://disasters.nasa.gov

ALOS-2: https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/a/alos-2

Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA): http://global.jaxa.jp/

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): https://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/home/index.html

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Esprit Smith.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Science Soars to the Space Station on SpaceX CRS-18

SpaceX - Dragon CRS-18 Mission patch.

July 8, 2019

Dozens of scientific experiments are scheduled to travel to the International Space Station aboard a Dragon cargo spacecraft in late July. This 18th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract mission for NASA blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. The springboard to NASA's missions to the Moon and Mars, the space station also provides opportunities for other U.S. government agencies, private industry, and academic and research institutions to conduct microgravity research. Such research can lead to the development of new technologies, medical treatments and products that improve life on Earth.

Highlights of Science Launching on SpaceX CRS 18 - July 8, 2019

Read more about some of the scientific investigations traveling to the microgravity laboratory on the Dragon.

These microbes rock

Image above: Sphingomonas desiccabilis, one of three microbes chosen for the BioRock experiment, seen growing on basalt. Run by a research team from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, BioRock tests how altered states of gravity affect biofilm formation on the International Space Station. Image Credits: UK Centre for Astrobiology/University of Edinburgh.

Microbes growing on the surface of rocks can gradually break down those rocks and extract minerals. This natural process enables a process called bio-mining. Common on Earth, bio-mining could eventually help explorers on the Moon or Mars acquire needed materials, lessening the need to use precious resources from Earth and reducing the amount of supplies that explorers must take with them. Microgravity affects the interaction between microbes and rocks, though, and may restrict bacterial growth. The BioRock investigation examines these interactions as well as physical and genetic changes in the microbes. The discoveries could support future acquisition of materials in space and advance development of life support systems with microbial components.

Bioprinting tissues in space

Image above: The Biofabrication Facility created by TechShot, a 3D printer capable of manufacturing human tissue in microgravity. Image Credit: TechShot Inc.

Scientists and medical professionals have long dreamed of using three-dimensional (3D) biological printers to produce usable human organs. But printing the tiny, complex structures found inside human organs, such as capillary structures, has proven difficult in Earth’s gravity. Microgravity eliminates the need for scaffolding structures to support complex tissue shapes, and the BioFabrication Facility (BFF) provides a platform to attempt printing of biological tissues on the space station. This investigation could serve as a first step toward achieving the ability to fabricate entire human organs in space.

How silica rolls in space

Goodyear Tire investigation evaluates the creation of silica fillers using traditional techniques but in microgravity, potentially yielding results not possible on Earth. A better understanding of silica morphology and the relationship between silica structure and its properties could improve the silica design process, silica rubber formulation, and tire manufacturing and performance on the ground. Such improvements could include increased fuel efficiency, which would reduce transportation costs and help to protect Earth’s environment.

Moss grows fat on an orbiting craft

Mosses, tiny plants without roots, need only a small area for growth. These plants show changes in biomass and photosynthesis rate in response to changes in gravity. These traits could prove an advantage for the potential use of mosses as a source of food and oxygen in space and future bases on the Moon or Mars. Space Moss compares mosses grown aboard the space station with those grown on Earth to determine how microgravity affects growth, development, gene expression, photosynthesis, and other features. The investigation also provides a better understanding of the mechanisms of moss response to microgravity, with potential applications for engineering plants to grow better on Earth.

How space gets on our nerves

Space Tango-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells examines how microglial cells grow and move in 3D cultures and changes in gene expression that occur in microgravity. Microglia are a type of immune defense cell found in the central nervous system. Understanding the way nerve cells grow and survive along with the accompanying changes in gene expression in microgravity is essential to protecting astronaut health, particularly on long-duration missions.

This long-term cell culture investigation is also the first to use human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in microgravity to study Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Adult cells genetically programmed to return to an embryonic stem cell–like state, iPSCs potentially could provide an unlimited source of any type of human cell for therapeutic purposes. This research could provide valuable insights into the processes of these diseases and lead to improved prevention and treatments.

Connecting with the space station

Image above: The International Docking Adapter 3 as it is packed into the SpaceX Dragon at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 19. IDA 3 is intended to support future U.S. crewed vehicles visiting the station. Image Credit: NASA.

International Docking Adapters or IDAs serve as physical points for connecting spacecraft to the space station. Any spacecraft can be designed to use IDAs, from new commercial spacecraft to other yet-to-be designed international vehicles. IDA systems have become more sophisticated than previous docking systems. For example, lasers and sensors allow the station and spacecraft to talk to each other digitally, sharing distance cues and enabling automatic alignment and connection.

IDA 3 attaches to the Harmony node and can accommodate Commercial Crew Program (CCP) vehicle dockings, including the first spacecraft to launch astronauts from U.S. soil since the space shuttle.

Building better bones in space

Image above: Interior view of an incubator cassette from the Bioculture System used by the Cell Science 02 investigation. Image Credits: NASA photo by Dominic Hart.

The Cell Science-02 investigation examines the effects of microgravity on healing and tissue regeneration and on the agents that induce that healing. The investigation improves understanding of how selected growth factors affect tissue regeneration at the molecular and biochemical level and contributes to developing better countermeasures against loss of bone density experienced by astronauts in space. The investigation also has potential applications for those with impaired healing of serious wounds and for treating bone loss due to osteoporosis on Earth.

Related links:

BioRock: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7566

BioFabrication Facility (BFF): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Facility.html?#id=7599

Goodyear Tire: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7716

Space Moss: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7892

Space Tango-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7976

International Docking Adapters (IDAs): https://www.nasa.gov/feature/meet-the-international-docking-adapter

Cell Science-02: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=1676

Spot the Station: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/Michael Johnson/JSC/ISSPSO/Melissa Gaskill.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch