Space X on the launch pad earlier today Photo Credit: NASA
*Please note that on Friday, the President of the United States will also be in town!
Launch Update
The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch scheduled for this morning at 6:20 a.m. EST aborted with one minute, 21 seconds left on the countdown clock. A thrust vector control actuator for the Falcon 9’s second stage failed to perform as expected, resulting in a launch abort.
SpaceX is evaluating the issue and will determine the next opportunity to launch the company’s fifth commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. The next available opportunity to launch to the station would be Friday, Jan. 9.
L&N STEM Academy, Grades 5-11, Knoxville, Tennessee
The purpose of Waste in Space: Exploring the Effect of Microgravity on the Rate of Decomposition of Corn Starch by Rid-X® experiment is to determine the effect of microgravity on the rate of decomposition of corn starch by Rid-X®, a commercial septic treatment product. Rid-X® contains enzymes and bacteria, which work together to decompose organic waste and produce carbon dioxide. Some of the carbon dioxide remains dissolved in the fluid to form carbonic acid. The rate of decomposition is measured by titrating the fluid in the experimental and control tubes with sodium hydroxide, which tells the amount of carbonic acid produced by the bacteria. The experiment is terminated with ethanol. Corn starch is chosen as the food source and ethanol as the terminating agent because they are pH-neutral, measurement of the small amount of acid produced by the bacteria. The rate of decomposition is predicted to be slower in microgravity because Rid-X® is designed to work in a septic system, which is stratified into layers on Earth by gravity. In microgravity, the bacteria and enzymes in the Rid-X® and the corn starch are expected to float around in clumps. The enzymes in Rid-X® therefore should be more likely to find the corn starch and begin breaking it down for the bacteria to metabolize on Earth than in microgravity, because on Earth they both should sink to the bottom and mix in the layer of sludge. (NRP-10009-8, S/N 1015) [Orb-3, SpX-5]
Students will look to the skies this week when SpaceX’s fifth commercial resupply services (CRS) mission to the International Space Station lifts , from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will carry scientific research conceived and designed by students who are learning first-hand what it takes to conduct research in space.
Eighteen Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) teams worked to prepare the investigations in time to fly to the space station. The teams previously had their research aboard Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket, which suffered a failure during launch in October.
“I try to teach students, when I speak to them, not to be afraid of failure. An elementary school student once told me, when I asked for a definition of success, that ‘success is taking failure and turning it inside out.’ It is important that we rebound, learn from these events and try again — and that’s a great lesson for students,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “I am delighted that most of the students will get to see their investigations re-flown on tomorrow’s SpaceX mission. Perseverance is a critical skill in science and the space business.”
SSEP managers and supporters worked to ensure the students’ experiments were prepared and ready for the next available launch. The student experiments were rebuilt and shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for stowage aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, destined for the space station.
“Failure happens in science, and what we do in the face of that failure defines who we are,” said Jeff Goldstein, director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, which oversees SSEP in partnership with NanoRacks LLC and, for international participation, the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education. “NASA and NanoRacks moved mountains to get us on the next launch, SpaceX CRS-5. We faced an insanely tight turnaround, but all the student teams stepped up to the plate.”
This unplanned lesson in real-world science fits with SSEP’s goal of immersing and engaging students and their teachers in conducting authentic space science, just like professional investigators.
The student experiments will investigate a range of topics from a crystal growth study that will enable students to learn more about how fluids act and form into crystals in the absence of gravity to how microgravity affect milk spoilage. This set of student experiments collectively is known as Yankee Clipper and is the eighth flight opportunity associated with the SSEP.
The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), manager of the U.S. National Laboratory on the space station, is a national sponsor for SSEP and funds nine of the Yankee Clipper investigations. Additionally, CASIS is committed to re-flying six student experiments from its National Design Challenge program that were lost with Antares.
