麻豆影院

Sky is the limit for BioServe Space Technologies听

If you glimpse the International Space Station (ISS), a bright speck of light often visible hurtling across the night sky, there is one thing you can be sure of: It is carrying hightech hardware designed and built at CU 麻豆影院.

BioServe Space Technologies, based in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, has been building and flying space research payloads since 1991, when hardware and a biomedical experiment flew on a six-day mission aboard NASA鈥檚 space shuttle Atlantis.

Since then, BioServe has designed, built and flown more than 100 payloads on more than 50 space flight missions, including 41 space shuttle missions鈥攁bout half of which docked with ISS. BioServe hardware has had a constant presence on ISS for 16 years, including suitcase-sized incubators and other devices for cell culturing; fluid processing; bone and muscle analyses; molecular studies; plant growth; and in-flight imaging.

鈥淏ioServe engineers regularly train NASA astronauts on various devices in order to ready the spacefarers for upcoming missions,鈥� says BioServe Director Louis Stodieck. Some experiments, like those involving bone and muscle loss in microgravity, might not only lead to healthier astronauts鈥攚ho lose bone mass at a surprisingly high rate in space鈥攂ut could pave the way for new treatments for diseases like MS and osteoporosis.

鈥淭he low gravity of space provides a unique test bed for developing new techniques, products and processes that can benefit not only astronauts but also people on Earth,鈥� Stodieck says. 鈥淚n space, scientists can learn more about biochemical changes in various cells and organisms that the force of gravity on Earth may be masking.鈥�

BioServe has partnered with more than 100 companies and performed dozens of NASAsponsored investigations in space. Partners鈥攊ncluding large and small pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies鈥攈ave sponsored studies of heart cells, pathogens, immune systems, antibiotics and the behavior of microbial ecosystems.

By 2011, when NASA finally mothballed the space shuttle fleet, BioServe had already turned an eye to the 听private spaceflight sector. In October 2012, BioServe flew equipment and experiments on the inaugural flight of the Dragon spacecraft built by SpaceX, a company based in Hawthorne, California. Since then, BioServe has regularly flown payloads on SpaceX Dragons, often to ISS.

Not all payloads target cutting-edge research, says BioServe Associate Director Stefanie Countryman. For more than a decade BioServe has been developing and flying educational experiments involving creatures like lady bugs, ants, spiders and butterflies that have reached tens of thousands of K鈥�12 students around the world.

鈥淭o be able to use a facility like the International Space Station for these K鈥�12 experiments and involve thousands of teachers and students is tremendously exciting,鈥� says Countryman, who leads BioServe鈥檚 educational and outreach efforts. 鈥淭here is no other educational program like this in the world, and we see it as a great way to inspire students to excel in science, technology, engineering and math.鈥�

鈥淲e would be unable to carry out all of our research without the help of our students,鈥� Stodieck explains. 鈥淏oth undergraduate and graduate students play an important role in designing, building and testing spaceflight payloads, activities that can give them a significant advantage when they move on to careers in the aerospace industry.鈥�