Check out a few
of the pieces of research taking that ride back to Earth.
A cinematic look at life and science
aboard the space station
You may one day get to
experience the product of The ISS Experience. A team is creating
a cinematic virtual reality (VR) film from footage taken during in space
covering crew life, execution of science and the international partnerships
involved on the space station.
Every week or
so, footage is transferred from the camera onto solid state drives – an
original and a backup – for storage and downlinking. One of each pair of drives
returns to Earth for editing and production.
Seeking Alzheimer’s understanding in
microgravity
Amyloid
fibrils, a conglomeration of proteins that can build up in the body, are
associated with a number of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and
Parkinson’s diseases. The Amyloid
Aggregation
investigation assesses whether microgravity affects formation of these fibrils.
Samples exposed
to microgravity are coming back to Earth using a facility that maintains a chilly
temperature of -20°C. Teams on the ground must quickly retrieve the equipment
and keep the samples at -20°C until they are analyzed.
The SPHERES return home
Synchronized
Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites, or SPHERES, are
bowling-ball sized satellites used to study formation flying, control
algorithms and material science.
First sent to
the station in 2006, these satellites have been employed in a dozen different
investigations.
The Dragon
brings back hardware from two recent experiments that examined the behavior of
fluids in microgravity, SPHERES Tether Slosh and SPHERES-Slosh.
From microgravity lab to manufacturing
facility
The Fiber
Optic Production
investigation created optical fibers on the space station using a blend of
materials called ZBLAN to see whether making the fibers in microgravity has
advantages over the process used on Earth. ZBLAN optical fibers offer high
bandwidth for the telecommunications industry, and potential applications for
uses like laser surgery and environmental monitoring.
The fiber produced
on the space station is coming to Earth for testing to help verify previous
studies and guide future efforts to manufacture large volumes of such fiber in
microgravity.
“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”
— Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (via philosophybits)
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