Watch ovarian cells and other wild experiments launch to space station today - Space.com

Update for 5 americium ET, Nov. 7: Northrop Grumman is present counting down to motorboat the Antares rocket and Cygnus NG-18 cargo vessel from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility contiguous astatine 5:32 a.m. EST (1032 GMT).

Ovarian cells from cows are moo-ving to the abstraction station, on with a acceptable of different intriguing subject experiments.

The latest International Space Station (ISS) shipment, coming courtesy of a Northrop Grumman robotic Cygnus cargo spacecraft, volition blast disconnected connected the company's Antares rocket nary earlier than 5:50 a.m. EST (1050 GMT) connected Sunday (Nov. 6) from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport astatine Wallops Island, Virginia. You tin ticker unrecorded present astatine Space.com, courtesy of NASA Television. Coverage starts 20 minutes earlier launch.

After arriving astatine the ISS connected Tuesday (Nov. 8) and getting installed, the bovine compartment bonanza (OVOSPACE (opens successful caller tab)) volition look astatine however microgravity affects the maturation of cells. This could yet person applications for quality fertility treatments, experimentation co-principal researcher Andrew Fuso told Space.com.

"This is truly our archetypal approach, and it is for the infinitesimal an observational study," Fuso, who is besides an subordinate prof astatine the Sapienza University of Rome, said during a livestreamed property league connected Oct. 25. After the results are in, the investigators volition probe imaginable cause interventions oregon edible (nutraceutical) additives to amended fertility outcomes successful aboriginal studies, helium added.

Related: NASA-funded spacesuit tech whitethorn assistance with menopause relief

Also heading to the orbiting laboratory is simply a 3D printer known arsenic the BioFabrication Facility (opens successful caller tab), which besides reached abstraction successful 2019 to people immoderate quality genu cartilage (specifically, the meniscus), and a acceptable of quality bosom cells.

"We brought [the printer] backmost to our laboratory successful Indiana ... to adhd a fewer caller capabilities, specified arsenic the quality to yet power the somesthesia of each printhead, and present we're excited to spot it launch," said Rich Boling, vice president of firm advancement for in-space manufacturing and operations astatine the institution Redwire Space, successful the aforesaid conference.

Related: Bioprinter volition 3D-print quality insubstantial connected the abstraction station

After different abstraction shipment, Redwire volition people a caller meniscus and survey it successful the laboratory to get acceptable for imaginable diligent transplants successful the future, Boling said. Blood vessels and cardiac tissues volition beryllium manufactured arsenic well. Redwire besides plans cause efficacy investigating successful abstraction connected "organoids," oregon miniature versions of organs.

Boling hinted that specified probe would proceed connected Orbital Reef, a Redwire-supported commercialized abstraction presumption successful improvement for formation successful the 2030s. The task is led by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, and includes partners similar Boeing and Amazon.

Some of the different experiments making their abstraction debut include, successful the words of NASA (opens successful caller tab):

• Assessing however plants accommodate to space: Plants exposed to spaceflight acquisition changes that impact the summation of other accusation to their DNA, which regulates however genes crook connected oregon disconnected but does not alteration the series of the DNA itself. This process is known as epigenetic change. Plant Habitat-03 (opens successful caller tab) assesses whether specified adaptations successful 1 procreation of plants grown successful abstraction tin transportation to the adjacent generation.
• Mudflow mixtures: Climate alteration and planetary warming are contributing to expanding occurrence of wildfires. When a wildfire burns plants, combusted chemicals make a bladed furniture of ungraded that repels rainwater. Rain past erodes the ungraded and tin crook into catastrophic mudflows that transportation dense boulders and debris downhill, causing important harm to infrastructure, watersheds, and quality life. Post-Wildfire Mudflow Micro-Structure (opens successful caller tab) evaluates the creation of these mudflows, which see sand, water, and trapped air.
• First satellites from Uganda and Zimbabwe: BIRDS-5 (opens successful caller tab) is a constellation of CubeSats: PEARLAFRICASAT-1, the archetypal outer developed by Uganda; ZIMSAT-1, Zimbabwe’s archetypal satellite; and TAKA from Japan. BIRDS-5 performs multispectral observations of Earth utilizing a commercialized off-the-shelf camera and demonstrates a high-energy physics measuring instrument. The information collected could assistance separate bare crushed from wood and farmland and perchance bespeak the prime of cultivation growth. 
• Powering the abstraction station: Hardware to beryllium installed extracurricular the presumption successful mentation for the installation of Roll-Out Solar Arrays (opens successful caller tab).

Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of "Why Am I Taller (opens successful caller tab)?" (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a publication astir abstraction medicine. Follow her connected Twitter @howellspace (opens successful caller tab). Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or Facebook (opens successful caller tab).