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Scientists make no bones about first study of osteocyte cultures on Space Station

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IMAGE:This is a close-up of mouse osteocytes within the bone. view more

Credit: Dr. L Bonewald

Researchers may be "excyted" to learn that osteocyte cultures are headed to the International Space Station this spring for the first time. With their delivery on the next SpaceX commercial resupply services mission this month, the Osteocytes and mechano-transduction (Osteo-4) investigation team will analyze the effects of microgravity on this type of bone cell. Understanding these effects will be critical as astronauts plan for future missions that require longer exposure to microgravity, such as to deep space or Mars. The results derived from this study could also have implications for patients on Earth in the treatment of bone disorders related to disuse or immobilization, as well as metabolic diseases such as osteoporosis.

"We are investigating how osteocytes - the most abundant cells in the adult skeleton - both sense and respond to changes in mechanical forces, as achieved aboard the space station," said National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantee Paola Divieti Pajevic, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator of the Osteo-4 study and associate professor at the Goldman School of Dental Medicine at Boston University.

Through previous spaceflight studies, some crew members have shown a loss of bone mass after long-duration missions in space. Divieti Pajevic's team examines the function and behavior of isolated osteocytes in microgravity to determine how they may contribute to the observed decline in crew member bone density.

Osteocytes are the cells that sense mechanical forces, like weight-lifting, as they are applied to the skeleton. They transform these forces into biological responses, signaling other cells to make or remove bone.

"If we can figure out bone loss in the extreme conditions of space, we could figure out how to make more bone or counteract bone loss in astronauts," said Divieti Pajevic. "This has applications to millions of people on Earth who are affected by osteoporosis and related fractures."

Divieti Pajevic's research team uses samples from a specific line of bone cells from mice that mimic human bone osteocytes in gene expression. Gene expression is the process in which information programmed in a gene is used to direct the assembly of a protein molecule, which then helps carry out the instructions given to the cell for its role. The team will try to isolate the genetic signals changed in the cells once exposed to microgravity.

During the Osteo-4 study, the osteocytes are grown in a synthetic, tissue-like, three-dimensional structure and housed inside bioreactors. Bioreactors are containers used to allow the cells to grow in a protected environment. Three trays each house three individual bioreactors, creating a total of nine samples for study on the space station.

Once the samples have arrived in space and are exposed to microgravity, astronauts will freeze the cells at intervals of three, five and seven or eight days. Freezing the osteocytes will stop changes in the cells and allow the researchers to look at the differences at early and later stages of exposure to microgravity. The frozen samples will return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon for further examination.

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Scientists make no bones about first study of osteocyte cultures on Space Station

SpaceX Preps for Daring Rocket Launch Again

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SpaceX will try again to make history during the launch of its robotic Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station on Monday.

The company aims to bring the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket back to Earth for a soft touchdown on an unmanned "spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean after the booster sends Dragon on its way toward the orbiting lab. Liftoff is scheduled for 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT) Monday from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station; you can watch all the action live at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

SpaceX attempted the same reusable-rocket maneuver during the last Dragon cargo launch, which occurred in January, and very nearly pulled it off: The Falcon 9 first stage succeeded in hitting the drone ship but came in a bit too hard and exploded on the deck. [SpaceX's Reusable Rocket Landing Test Explained (Infographic)]

The rocket stage's stabilizing "hypersonic grid fins" ran out of hydraulic fluid, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said after the Jan. 10 try. He vowed to fix that particular issue in time for the next attempt.

The next booster to come down for a drone-ship landing will have "way more hydraulic fluid," Musk tweeted on Jan. 16. "At least it shd explode for a diff reason."

The autonomous drone ship, incidentally, is named "Just Read the Instructions," after a sentient colony vessel from the sci-fi novels of Iain M. Banks.

Monday's test is part of SpaceX's effort to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets. Such technology could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100, helping open the heavens to exploration, Musk has said.

The main mission on Monday, however, is to get Dragon and the 4,387 lbs. (2,015 kilograms) of food, supplies and scientific experiments that it's toting on course to the space station. The launch will initiate the sixth of 12 cargo missions that SpaceX is flying to the orbiting lab under a $1.6 billion NASA contract.

If all goes according to plan, Dragon will arrive at the station on Wednesday (April 15). The spacecraft will spend about five weeks attached to the $100 billion complex before coming back down to Earth with 3,020 lbs. (1,370 kg) of science gear, hardware and trash.

The capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, then be retrieved by recovery crews via boat. (Dragon is the only cargo vessel flying today capable of bringing supplies back to Earth; the others are all designed to burn up in Earth's atmosphere.)

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SpaceX Preps for Daring Rocket Launch Again

NASA drives future discoveries with new ISS information system

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A new NASA-designed information system will drive discoveries as scientists and researchers devise future investigations to be conducted aboard the International Space Station.

Specialists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, gathered critical information on the agency's physical science research to create Physical Science Informatics, a knowledge base that will give investigators access to information on previous space station research to boost future research.

The space station is an orbiting laboratory providing an ideal facility to conduct long-duration investigations in a microgravity environment. The platform allows continuous and interactive research similar to Earth-based laboratories, including key hardware for conducting investigations.

"The space station enables scientists to pursue innovations and discoveries not currently achievable by other means," said Julie Robinson, chief scientist for the International Space Station. "We want to make this coordinated scientific data available so scientists from any field can use it to propose new investigations and make advances to benefit the entire world."

Funded by the International Space Station Program, the Physical Science Informatics puts information on past, current and future space station physical science investigations in one digital repository making it easy for investigators to find out what's been done so far in research areas and devise where to go next.

"This comprehensive data will allow researchers to easily see what kinds of physical sciences experiments have been done and use that information to design new experiments for the International Space Station," said Teresa Miller, who leads the effort for Marshall's Materials and Process Laboratory.

All results are sortable and cover a variety of subjects that comprise physical science including combustion science, complex fluids, fundamental physics, materials science and biophysics.

"The informatics system provides open access of the space station physical sciences data to the global community," said Fran Chiaramonte, program scientist for physical sciences at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The goals are to increase the number of scientists participating in space station research, allow new areas of research and discovery to occur more quickly, and accelerate the research-to-product timeline through rapid and open sharing of data."

Collecting this data in a single location not only provides scientists with scientific data from NASA research, but also helps identify fields where more study is needed. Investigators will find it easy to locate information about materials properties and other physical influences of the microgravity environment.

"Informatics will help us identify gaps in our knowledge base," said Marshall Porterfield, NASA's director of Space Life and Physical Sciences at NASA Headquarters. "Too often there are lengthy delays in publishing results of experiments. The lack of access to information should not be a roadblock to discovery."

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NASA drives future discoveries with new ISS information system

Dragon spacecraft to deliver research supplies and caffeine boost to Space Station

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Mondays scheduled launch will act as an errand runner for the International Space Station and the Dragon resupply spacecraft is loaded up with research equipment.

This delivery will bring an array of supplies to help assist astronauts perform experiments while in space. Let's take a look at some of the research happening at the world's laboratory in orbit.

NASA Astronaut and Russian Cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are human health study subjects as part of their one-year mission living in space. Scientists hope to better understand how humans handle long-duration spaceflight from them. The Fluid Shifts Study will use Kelly and Kornienko to watch the shifting position of bodily fluids, think blood and water. Fluid creates pressure in the brain and at the back of the eye, causing the eye to change shape, which could explain the change in vision some astronauts have a experienced.

Astronauts now bring adjustable eyeglasses to ISS, even if they dont need them on Earth, because some astronauts slowly get farsighted after long periods in orbit,according to a recent Atlantic story.

Scientists hope to find a way to avoid change in vision for astronauts with the help of the Fluid Shifts Study. The results may help develop treatments for people on Earth confined to bed rest or with brain swelling.

Also headed up to the Space Station are supplies for ISSpresso, an espresso maker for the crew members to make coffee and other hot beverages, but its also an experiment. The crew will try out new cups as part of the Capillary Beverage study. They are designed to mimic the role of gravity, which would be an improvement to drinking out of a pouch with a straw all the time.

Wired UK created this graphic to show how astronauts use ISSpresso, made by Italian coffee makers Lavazza, it's a kind of a process.

The ISSpresso could lead to new brewing methods on Earth, so look out Starbucks.

This will be the sixth SpaceX resupply delivery mission to the Space Station. Watch live video of the launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station onorlandosentinel.com/goforlaunch Monday, April 13 at 4:33 p.m.

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Dragon spacecraft to deliver research supplies and caffeine boost to Space Station

'Space-age' research looks to provide new human health insights

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IMAGE:NASA's Rodent Habitat module is shown with both access doors open. view more

Credit: NASA/Dominic Hart

Imagine if all of your physiological changes were hyper accelerated so that you passed through life cycles in weeks as opposed to decades. You'd be able to grow a beard overnight or your hair might begin graying in a matter of days or maybe menopause would come knocking by next weekend. This may seem like a far stretch from reality, but spaceflight causes significant physiological changes including an accelerated loss of muscle and bone density, and immune system dysfunction that parallel the effects of natural aging here on Earth. This makes the International Space Station (ISS) is an ideal place for scientists to conduct research on aging at a "space-aged" pace.

One of the several investigations that are part of the second rodent research mission, Rodent Research-2 will focus on the age-old phenomenon of aging. This research, sponsored by Novartis Biomedical Research Institute, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) is slated to launch to the space station via SpaceX-6. Researchers will use the study to analyze how spaceflight and exposure to the microgravity environment impacts a model organism's musculoskeletal system.

Studying the disease mechanisms of muscle wasting and bone loss, which are associated with both spaceflight and aging, can provide greater insight into these processes and help to identify potential new drug targets and develop new therapeutics for other conditions as well. Advanced treatments for diseases like osteoporosis, muscular dystrophy, cancer, spinal cord injury, and kidney failure could all be developed through valuable data gained through this investigation and subsequent studies.

The musculoskeletal system is made up of bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, cartilage and joints. This biological system is greatly affected by the aging process and certain diseases, as well as spaceflight. Researchers anticipate that the science conducted on the space station will provide insight into molecular variations induced by spaceflight, and can applied to our knowledge of similar changes on Earth.

The ISS National Lab is now equipped with specialized hardware, like the Bone Densitometer Locker. This facility, which launched with the previous rodent research mission, allows scientists to gather data in real time. Researchers will track numerous data points from the mice test subjects, including gene expression, various biomarkers from several biological systems, and molecular changes within musculoskeletal tissues.

A second part of the Rodent Research-2 study is scheduled to launch aboard SpaceX-7 and will include three separate investigations sponsored by NASA. Michael Pecaut, Ph.D., of Loma Linda University is the principal investigator for a study of the effects of spaceflight on immune system function. Michael Delp, Ph.D., of Florida State University, is the principal investigator for a study of spaceflight-induced changes in the structure of the blood-brain barrier. Data from a third study of the effect of spaceflight on liver metabolism and gene expression will be shared with the scientific community via GeneLab, NASA's new open access system for sharing of genomics data gained from research in space. NASA's Ames Research Center is responsible for carrying out all of the CASIS and NASA-funded science on this mission.

Collaboration between other government agencies and commercial entities, facilitated by CASIS and NASA, are helping to maximize the research capabilities of the ISS National Lab for the benefit of Earth.

We may still have to wait years to experience our own aging--which is likely a good thing--but thanks to space station research we may have help for treating those age-related challenges through the accelerated knowledge gained through studies like Rodent Research-2.

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'Space-age' research looks to provide new human health insights

Astronaut Kelly Says Space Station Arrival "Like Coming to My Old Home" – Video

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Astronaut Kelly Says Space Station Arrival "Like Coming to My Old Home"
NASA Flight Engineer Scott Kelly says arriving at the International Space Station for a planned year-long stay is "like coming to my old home." Full Story: NASA astronaut Scott Kelly was...

By: NTDTV

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Astronaut Kelly Says Space Station Arrival "Like Coming to My Old Home" - Video

Space Station Crew Member Discusses Life in Space with the Italian Prime Minister – Video

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Space Station Crew Member Discusses Life in Space with the Italian Prime Minister
Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 43 Flight Engineer Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency discussed her mission and its accomplishments with Italian Prime Minister...

By: NASA

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Space Station Crew Member Discusses Life in Space with the Italian Prime Minister - Video

Expedition 44 to host Sarah Brightman on International Space Station – Video

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Expedition 44 to host Sarah Brightman on International Space Station
As the crew that makes up Expedition 44 comprised of American astronaut Kjell Lindgren, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui prepares to launch for a ...

By: Travis Kircher

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Expedition 44 to host Sarah Brightman on International Space Station - Video

How to see the International Space Station flying over Surrey and north-east Hampshire

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Have you ever wanted to see the International Space Station (ISS)?

Intergalactic travel might be out of the question, but now NASA experts are telling people when the ISS will be visible in different parts of the world - including in our region this month.

The space explorers have an updated list of times when the ISS will be able to be viewed in Dorking, Farnborough, Farnham and Guildford.

The ISS, which appears as a bright glowing object, looks like a fast-moving plane or star shooting across the horizon.

The space station is currently habited by a crew of six people and orbits at a height of about 264 miles, traveling around the earth 15 times a day.

The ISS has been in space for more than 5,800 days, during which time it has completed more than 92,000 orbits of the planet, and has been continuously occupied for more than 13 years,

To see it, look south or west in the night sky.

It pretty much looks like a bright star or fast-moving plane.

It has no flashing lights and doesn't make a sound, so that's how you can tell the difference between it and any aircraft in the sky.

Times are also available for areas bordering the region including in Worthing, Bracknell and East Grinstead.

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How to see the International Space Station flying over Surrey and north-east Hampshire


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