Space to Ground: Laying the Groundwork: June 28, 2024

NASA's Space to Ground is your weekly update on what's happening aboard the International Space Station.

What is said in the film

Welcome to Space to Ground, I'm Nilufar Ramji. The crew aboard the International Space Station continues to work on several science investigations that support human health systems and plant bioscience research. Let’s get right into this week’s activities with an investigation that uses targeted gene sequencing to identify bacteria and fungi species in the space station’s water system. This week Suni Williams retrieved a frozen water sample and processed the DNA profile in-orbit. The Genes in Space Molecular Operations and Sequencing, or GiSMOS investigation builds on previous Genes in Space investigations by using the molecular biology tools aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Currently, no accurate microbial profile exists for the space station’s water systems due to the delay in transporting these samples back to Earth for analysis. Characterizing the space station’s microbial communities is critical to sustaining the health of crew members and vehicles and could support future deep space missions. Astronauts also worked on another investigation called Gaucho Lung. Gaucho Lung studies fluid transport within gel-coated tubes to learn more about how the mucus that covers the respiratory system affects how drugs are delivered to the lungs. This form of treatment is essential in treating newborns with underdeveloped lungs experiencing respiratory distress syndrome.

In microgravity, researchers can study how the mucus affects fluid transport deep into the lung. On Earth, such experiments must be conducted in very small tubes, which are difficult to manufacture and to image because of their small scale. Microgravity allows researchers to scale up these experiments. Results could support development of new strategies for administering respiratory treatments and for preventing the contamination of tubing used for liquid flows in health care and the food industry. Imagine a fully automated facility that is used to conduct plant bioscience research on the International Space Station.

Well, the Advanced Plant Habitat, or Plant Habitat provides a large, enclosed, environmentally controlled chamber designed to support commercial and fundamental plant research or other bioscience research onboard the orbiting laboratory. For at least one year of continuous operation with only maintenance of consumables, and 180 calibrated sensors to ensure that the system functions autonomously, the Plant Habitat integrates proven microgravity plant growth technologies with newly developed fault tolerance and recovery technology to increase overall efficiency, reliability, and robustness. This investigation could lead to an increased understanding of autonomous environments for long duration missions beyond low Earth orbit. For the latest on the activities taking place aboard the International Space Station, don’t forget to follow us at blogs. nasa.

gov/spacestation And for the last week of June, that’s Space to Ground. Thanks so much for watching.

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