Warren Paul, Golden Andy, Hanover John, Love Dona, Shephard Freya, Szewczyk Nathaniel J
Henry E. Lackey High School, 3000 Chicamuxen Road, Indian Head, MD 20640, USA.
Adv Space Res. 2013 Jun 1;51(12):2241-2250. doi: 10.1016/j.asr.2013.02.002.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a United States national science, technology, engineering, and mathematics initiative that aims to increase student interest in science by offering opportunities to perform spaceflight experiments. The experiment detailed here was selected and flown aboard the third SSEP mission and the first SSEP mission to the International Space Station (ISS). is a small, transparent, self-fertilizing hermaphroditic roundworm that is commonly used in biological experiments both on Earth and in Low Earth Orbit. Past experiments have found decreased expression of mRNA for several genes whose expression can be controlled by the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16. We flew a mutant and control worms to determine if the effects of spaceflight on are mediated by DAF-16. The experiment used a Type Two Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME), developed by Nanoracks LLC, and was delivered to the ISS aboard the SpaceX Dragon and returned aboard the Russian Soyuz. The short time interval between experiment selection and the flight rendered preflight experiment verification tests impossible. In addition, published research regarding the viability of the FME in life science experiments was not available. The experiment was therefore structured in such a way as to gather the needed data. Here we report that can survive relatively short storage and activation in the FME but cannot produce viable populations for post-flight analysis on extended missions. The FME appears to support short-duration life science experiments, potentially on supply or crew exchange missions, but not on longer ISS expeditions. Additionally, the flown FME was not properly activated, reportedly due to a flaw in training procedures. We suggest that a modified transparent FME could prevent similar failures in future flight experiments.
学生太空飞行实验计划（SSEP）是美国一项全国性的科学、技术、工程和数学倡议，旨在通过提供进行太空飞行实验的机会来提高学生对科学的兴趣。此处详细介绍的实验被选中并搭载在第三次SSEP任务以及首次前往国际空间站（ISS）的SSEP任务中。秀丽隐杆线虫是一种小型、透明、能自我受精的雌雄同体线虫，常用于地球和近地轨道的生物学实验。过去的实验发现，几种其表达可受FOXO转录因子DAF - 16控制的基因的mRNA表达有所下降。我们搭载了一种突变型线虫和对照线虫，以确定太空飞行对秀丽隐杆线虫的影响是否由DAF - 16介导。该实验使用了由Nanoracks LLC公司开发的二类流体混合舱（FME），并通过SpaceX龙飞船运送到国际空间站，再由俄罗斯联盟号飞船带回。从实验选定到飞行的时间间隔很短，使得飞行前的实验验证测试无法进行。此外，关于FME在生命科学实验中的可行性的已发表研究也不可得。因此，该实验的设计方式是为了收集所需数据。在此我们报告，秀丽隐杆线虫能够在FME中相对短时间的储存和激活后存活，但无法产生可用于飞行后长期任务分析的有活力的群体。FME似乎支持短期生命科学实验，可能适用于补给或乘员交换任务，但不适用于国际空间站更长时间的远征任务。此外，飞行中的FME没有被正确激活，据报道是由于训练程序中的一个缺陷。我们建议，一种改进的透明FME可以防止未来飞行实验中出现类似故障。
