New Glovebox Facility Heads to Space for Biological Research

The Japan Aerospace

Exploration Agency H-IIB

rocket is zooming toward the International

Space Station carrying NASA’s Life

Sciences Glovebox, a state-of-the-art microgravity research

facility.

JAXA’s HTV3, taken during Expedition 32

NASA’s Marshall Space

Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and their partners around the

world are excited to initiate new, high-value biological research in low-Earth

orbit.

The Japanese rocket, hauling the

research facility and other cargo via the HTV-7 transfer vehicle, successfully

lifted off at 1:52 p.m. EDT from Tanegashima Space Center off the coast of

Japan.

Its launch marks a first for hauling

bulky equipment to space. Roughly the size of a large fish

tank, the Life Sciences Glovebox comes

in at 26 inches high, 35 inches wide and 24 inches deep, with 15 cubic feet of

available workspace.

“The Life Sciences Glovebox

is on its way to the space station to enable a host of biological and

physiological studies, including new research into microgravity’s

long-term impact on the human body,” said Yancy Young, project manager at Marshall. “This

versatile facility not only will help us better protect human explorers on long

voyages into deep space, but it could aid medical and scientific advances

benefiting the whole world.”

Boeing engineers at Marshall modified a

refrigerator-freezer rack to house the core facility, using state-of-the-art,

3D-printing technology to custom design key pieces of the rack to secure the

unit in its protective foam clamshell.

NASA is now determining the roster of science

investigations lined up to make use of the facility, beginning as early as late

2018. “We’ve already got more than a dozen glovebox experiments scheduled

in 2019, with many more to follow,” said Chris Butler, payload integration manager for the glovebox at

Marshall.

The Life Sciences Glovebox will

be transferred to a zero-gravity stowage rack in the station’s Kibo

module, where up to two crew members can conduct experiments simultaneously,

overseen in real-time by project researchers on Earth.

Check out more pictures of the

Glovebox HERE!

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