NASA, SpaceX Sends Science, Hardware During 31st Resupply Launch from Cape Canaveral
- by Space Coast Daily
- Oct 18, 2024
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By NASA införmation center // October 18, 2024
NASA & SPACE NEWS ABOVE VIDEO: Science Launching on SpaceX’s 31st Cargo Resupply Mission to the Space Station
(NASA) – NASA and its international partners are launching scientific investigations on SpaceX’s 31st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station including studies of solar wind, a radiation-tolerant moss, spacecraft materials, and cold welding in space.
The company’s Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Read more about some of the research making the journey to the orbiting laboratory:
■ Measuring solar wind
■ The CODEX (COronal Diagnostic EXperiment) examines the solar wind, creating a globally comprehensive data set to help scientists validate theories for what heats the solar wind – which is a million degrees hotter than the Sun’s surface – and sends it streaming out at almost a million miles per hour.
The investigation uses a coronagraph, an instrument that blocks out direct sunlight to reveal details in the outer atmosphere or corona.
The instrument takes multiple daily measurements that determine the temperature and speed of electrons in the solar wind, along with the density information gathered by traditional coronagraphs. A diverse international team has been designing, building, and testing the instrument since 2019 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
NASA and its international partners are launching scientific investigations on SpaceX’s 31st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station including studies of solar wind, a radiation-tolerant moss, spacecraft materials, and cold welding in space. (NASA image)
Multiple missions have studied the solar wind, and CODEX could add important pieces to this complex puzzle. When the solar wind reaches Earth, it triggers auroras at the poles and can generate space weather storms that sometimes disrupt satellite and land-based communications and power grids on the ground. Understanding the source of the solar wind could help improve space-weather forecasts and response.
Antarctic moss in space
A radiation tolerance experiment, ARTEMOSS, uses a live Antarctic moss, Ceratodon purpureus, to study how some plants better tolerate exposure to radiation and to examine the physical and genetic response of biological systems to the combination of cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Little research has been done on how these two factors together affect plant physiology and performance, and results could help identify biological systems suitable for use in bioregenerative life support systems on future missions.
Mosses grow on every continent on Earth and have the highest radiation tolerance of any plant. Their small size, low maintenance, ability to absorb water from the air, and tolerance of harsh conditions make them suitable for spaceflight. NASA chose the Antarctic moss because that continent receives high levels of radiation from the Sun.
The investigation also could identify genes involved in plant adaptation to spaceflight, which might be engineered to create strains tolerant of deep-space conditions. Plants and other biological systems able to withstand the extreme conditions of space also could provide food and other necessities in harsh environments on Earth.
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