GMU:Space Is The Place/projects/Vanessa Cardui in Space

Launch date November 16.09.
STS-129 mission to ISS aboard space shuttle Atlantis
Vanessa Cardui animal astronauts in space
A project by NASA & NSBRI [national space biomedical research institute]
Research Applications:
Small organism study
General Features:
Passive gas exchange with cabin air (o2, co2, rH)
Habitats packaged to provide temperature, rH and experiment-specific sensors for environmental monitoring
Thermally controlled time course experiments
Imaging capabilities with near real-time downlink
Manual or automated config. control for activation and termination
Fluorescent, LED, electroluminescent and infared lighting available
Multiple levels of containment meet NASA safety reqs.

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The 'Butterflies In Space' project was sponsored by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute in the fall of 2009. Several Vanessa Cardui larvae that hatched six days earlier flew aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station. The experiment would examine the biological development and behaviours of the butterfly species Vanessa Cardui for the duration of their lifespan in outer space.

Both flight certified scientific insert (or payload) taken aboard the shuttle to house the larvae and the module at the ISS called the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus were developed at BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Our…competency is enabling the conduct of space life sciences research in a highly regulated environment in such a way as to make the complicated process completely transparent to the investigator..." The module would provide the necessary climate to sustain life in microgravity and featured a self-contained camera that would transmit images every 30 minutes during daylight hours to the web.

The Butterflies in Space mission used 'life in space' as a theme to engage students to conduct scientific investigation by constructing their own butterfly habitats in the classroom to watch the butterflies live, grow, and die over the course of their life span. The greatest variable was gravity, but both aimed to contain life and further speculate how the knowledge gained might apply to humans travelling farther into the solar system. A migration to space is at a level relatively few can appreciate.

Non humans biological organism were the first beings to experience the conditions of space for the purpose of biotechnological research. The effects of the expected space vacuum, wide temperature extremes, and cosmic raditaion of the space fontier effect how living systems might adapt to and function in the weightless of orbital space. STS-129, the 31st shuttle mission to the ISS was slated to be the final shuttle crew rotation flight to or from the Space Staion.

The experiment concluded December 10.09.

keywords:
space, simulation, artificial, controlled environment, habitat, migration, containment, alien.

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