Mon, Feb 20, 2012
Centrifuge Will Enhance Existing ISS Lab Equipment
NASA, Astrium Space Transportation and NanoRacks LLC are teaming
up to expand the research capability of the International Space
Station through delivery of a small commercial centrifuge facility
that will conduct molecular and cellular investigations on plant
and animal tissue. The centrifuge enhances NanoRacks' existing
suite of lab equipment aboard the space station, which includes
microscopes and a plate reader used to detect biological, chemical
or physical activity in samples.
Astrium Space Transportation handed over the research centrifuge
to NanoRacks LL, during a ceremony Tuesday, February 14 in Houston.
Astrium North America adapted the centrifuge, which was originally
built by Kayser Italia for use on space shuttle missions, for use
in the station's NanoRacks Platform-3. The commercial research team
funded the centrifuge.
NASA will deliver the centrifuge as part of its responsibility
to provide transportation for U.S. National Laboratory research and
facilities to the space station. Under its partnership with
Astrium, NanoRacks will add the centrifuge to the two racks of
laboratory support equipment already on the station. The centrifuge
is sized to fit the standard NanoRacks architecture, which can fly
on any launch vehicle. "This is an important step in the expansion
of National Lab facilities aboard the space station," said Marybeth
Edeen, U.S. National Laboratory manager at NASA's Johnson Space
Center. "Having companies develop research and facilities for the
National Lab with their own funding demonstrates the beginnings of
the commercial space marketplace that the National Lab was created
to serve."
NASA has manifested the NanoRacks-3 platform and the Astrium
centrifuge on a Russian Progress cargo ship scheduled for launch in
summer 2012 under its cargo agreements with the Russian Federal
Space Agency. (NASA image)
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