Science |

SpaceX launch sends space plant babies, ‘blue jet’ lightning research to space station

After a series of weather delays, SpaceX managed to send up a resupply mission to the International Space Station just before noon Monday.

A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:47 a.m. on the CRS-28 mission with a cargo Dragon spacecraft carrying nearly 7,000 pounds of supplies and science experiments.

Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/alTnpRy2Bu

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 5, 2023

The first-stage booster made its fifth flight with SpaceX once again recovering it downrange on its droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. The cargo Dragon is making its fourth trip to space, and is expected to dock early Tuesday morning with the ISS.

A big chunk of the weight flying in Dragon comes from the last pair of six new ISS Roll Out Solar Arrays, or iROSAs, that will be installed during a pair of spacewalks later this month. The $103 million replacements for the station’s existing arrays that have been used since 2000 will supply 30% more power and help ensure the station can be operational through NASA’s planned 2030 retirement.

Dragon separation confirmed; autonomous docking with the @space_station on Tuesday, June 6 at ~5:50 a.m. ET pic.twitter.com/z0EHw0jzrS

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 5, 2023

Also headed up is more food for the seven crew members on board including fresh apples, blueberries, grapefruit, oranges, cheese and tomatoes.

“SpaceX 28 launch brings a great mix of payloads to add to the over 3,700 investigations flown to the ISS to date,” said Dr. Kirt Costello, chief scientist for the International Space Station Program Research Office during a conference call Friday. He noted 31 investigations for NASA and international partners are making the trip up this time.

One of the science investigations he highlighted looks at plant genetics, headed up by University of Florida researchers Anna-Lisa Paul and Robert Ferl. It involves the seeds collected from plants that were grown in space and brought back to Earth just this past April on the return flight of SpaceX CRS-27. These seeds were then planted and are now headed back to space.

“This investigation — Plant Habitat-03 — is probably our most complex mission to date,” Costello said. “Not only because it involves multiple flights where we have to grow out the plant on orbit, take samples and then prep them on the ground for re-flight, but because it’s really looking at the genetic nature of how life responds to the microgravity environment, and stress that’s created from living in that environment.”

The benefits could involve how to grow plants for multiple generations in space, but could also be used to help adapt plant life in challenging habitats on Earth, he said.

“It’s a very ambitious investigation, also one that really gets at the nature of what it means to live in a microgravity environment,” Costello said. “So for that reason, it stands out as one of our most complex and most ambitious missions.”

Another investigation run by the European Space Agency is called Thor-Davis, which will observe thunderstorms from the ISS.

“Thor Davis is looking for upward-directed lightning events over the tops of thunderclouds,” Costello said. “So the ISS is a perfect vantage point for these kinds of observations. They’ll be using an electronic combination with a camera from a nadir window to capture what are known as blue jet and other lightning phenomenon.”

A genetic experiment that was spearheaded by Boeing working with students from grades 7-12 will pick up where the year-in-space twin study involving former astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly left off. It looks to measure gene structures called telomeres that protect human chromosomes, but shorten with age and wear. In the Kelly twin study, these telomeres were only able to be measured while Scott Kelly was on Earth and not during his yearlong stay on the station. This study looks to measure them while on orbit.

“Understanding the mechanism behind telomere lengthening could reveal possible effects on astronaut health during long-term missions,” according to a NASA press release. “Results also could lay the groundwork for a variety of related research to benefit future space travel and people on the ground.”

Also headed up are a pair of small satellites for ISS partners, the Canadian Space Agency. They will be sent out into orbit from the ISS via the Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer on board. One called Nanoracks-ESSENCE, which stands for Educational Space Science and ENgineering CubeSat Experiment Mission, will look at solar storms, Arctic ice, permafrost thaw and forests in the Canadian Arctic, looking to measure the effects of climate change.

Another called Nanoracks-Iris has geological samples on board that will orbit the Earth for months to measure the effects of direct solar or background cosmic radiation.

“Results could provide insight into similar processes on planetary bodies and, when combined with data from asteroid sampling missions, improve understanding of the origins of asteroids,” NASA’s press release said.

The cargo Dragon will remain attached for about three weeks to the ISS’s Zenith port alongside the Crew Dragon Endeavour that brought up the Crew-6 astronauts in March. They won’t return until Crew-7’s launch currently targeting mid-August.

This marks the 37th time either crew or cargo Dragon has flown, and its 28th reflight. To date, they have flown more than 280,000 pounds of crew and cargo to the ISS.

The launch marks the 28th of the year from the Space Coast, with all but one coming from SpaceX. Including California launches, SpaceX has now flown 38 orbital missions in 2023 not including its Starship and Super Heavy attempt from Texas.

The recovery of the booster marks the 198th time SpaceX has recovered either Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy boosters, which have now been flown on reflights 171 times.

Since the first successful Falcon 1 launch in 2008, SpaceX has now had 238 successful orbital launches including six Falcon Heavy and 229 out of 230 Falcon 9 attempts. The first Falcon 9 flew on June 4, 2010 and has not had a launch failure since 2015.