KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL. (December 9, 2015) – A variety of payloads sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) successfully berthed to the International Space Station (ISS) today onboard the Orbital ATK Cygnus capsule. CASIS is tasked with managing and promoting research onboard the ISS U.S. National Laboratory.
Payloads delivered by the Cygnus capsule represent commercial and academic payloads ultimately intended to benefit life on Earth, including:
MILLIKEN – VERTICAL BURN
Milliken & Company
Principal Investigator: Jeff Strahan, Ph.D.
Through this experiment, Milliken & Company will evaluate flame retardant and/or resistant (FR) textiles as a mode of personal protection from fire-related hazards. Studying FR behavior of different materials in microgravity will aid in better designs for future FR textiles and will benefit those who wear FR protective apparel, such as military personnel and civilian workers in the electrical and energy industries.
ZERO-G CHARACTERIZATION & ONORBIT ASSEMBLY FOR CELLULARIZED SATELLITE TECH
NovaWurks, Inc.
Principal Investigator: Talbot Jaeger
NovaWurks has developed a Hyper-Integrated Satellite named HISat that provides complete satellite functionality in a nanosatellite scale package. This project will design and demonstrate a technology for on-orbit assembly and deployment of the HISat system from the ISS that should substantially reduce costs associated with satellite system development for space-based R&D.
SPACE AUTOMATED BIOPRODUCT LABS 1 AND 2
BioServe
Principal Investigator: Louis Stodiek, Ph.D.
The Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) is a single locker-sized facility that will enable a wide variety of fundamental, applied, and commercial life sciences research to be done onboard the ISS. SABL consists of a temperature controlled chamber that can house a variety of passive or active experiments. It can be automated or remotely operated by the flight crew or by personnel in a remote operations center on the ground. SABL supports automated collection of experiment data from various sensors and from high-definition video. It can display data on a touchscreen interface on the front of the payload or downlink data files and HD video streams to the ground for analysis by scientists anywhere in the world.
STORY TIME FROM SPACE – 3
Principal Investigator: Patricia Tribe
This CASIS-sponsored education project includes a variety of instructive stories that will be read by astronauts and videotaped from the cupola of the ISS. In addition to the stories, the astronauts will perform simple physics demonstrations that complement the STEM concepts discussed in each of the books.
Additionally, the ISS National Laboratory supports a variety of investigations from NanoRacks, LLC, which through a Space Act Agreement with NASA, facilitates use of commercial hardware onboard the ISS. Projects brokered by NanoRacks represent academic and commercial interests from U.S.-based entities. All of these projects fly under the official manifest of the ISS National Laboratory.
For additional information about ISS National Laboratory sponsored payloads, visit: www.ark3.iss-casis.org.
To learn more about the ISS, including past research and available hardware and facilities, please visit: www.spacestationresearch.com.
