SpaceX Brings Medical Research Science For Humanity

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship in orbit with the International Space Station (Creative Commons License).

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship recently exited the international space station and returned to Earth with some exciting work on board. NASA made a large investment in the project that took ten professional astronauts to space to conduct the research.

The primary mission of Inspiration4 was to raise an amount of $200 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The team would fly to the orbital altitude of 355 miles (575 kilometers), and they will orbit for three days, after which they will re-enter the atmosphere.

Hayley Arceneaux is the medical officer of the mission. She stated that the team would be conducting medical research in which they will collect a large number of swabs to gain knowledge regarding the microbiome and how it changes in orbit. 

They will perform many ultrasounds to determine fluid shifts as well as cognitive tests and performance. The team will also study the radiation effects of moving in high earth orbit and altitudes.

This research contributes to understanding how the human body is impacted by microgravity.

Another aim onboard is to better understand Cytoskeleton, which deals with analyzing the effects of microgravity on cellular signaling molecules. This research contributes to understanding how the human body is impacted by microgravity. It will also enable the development of countermeasures to help astronauts better preserve optimal health during future missions.

The mission will splash down in Florida's Atlantic coast or the Gulf coast. This will enable the fast transportation of experiments to NASA's Space Station Processing Facility, allowing researchers to gather data with minimum sample exposure to Earth's gravity. 

SpaceX is now bringing back the medical supplies with 4,900 pounds of important research items, including samples from investigations on colloids and a light imaging microscope.

SpaceX Dragon returning to earth (Creative Commons License).

This SpaceX Dragon was launched in December of 2021 to supply the International Space Station with research, crew supplies, and hardware. 

The return of the cargo ship will mark the 24th SpaceX mission facilitating a "commercial resupply services mission for NASA".