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Kovacs, along with his own collection of E. coli, is seen here during a short period of zero-g aboard NASA's "vomit comet." GeneSat's E. coli, however, get the real deal and are in space.
Three months after E. coli made national headlines for infecting more than two hundred people through bags of fresh spinach, the bacteria has a surprisingly new, benign destination: outer space. Stanford, in collaboration with several other California universities, is assisting NASA in developing an experiment to use E. coli bacteria to test the effects of space on living organisms.
The project, which has been dubbed GeneSat-1, has involved the launching of a new non-harmful strain of E. coli bacteria into orbit in an attempt to observe the impact that zero gravity and space radiation have on the DNA of living organisms. By studying the data that is being transmitted to Earth from the shoebox-sized project satellite, the GeneSat-1 team believes that the mission could offer insight into the health risks of prolonged manned space missions. Spearheading the GeneSat-1 mission is a host of Stanford-affiliated technologists and NASA researchers.
“The coolest part of the mission is that the idea came from a Stanford alumnus, John Hines,” said Electrical Engineering Prof. Gregory Kovacs, whose lab serves as the center-point for the University’s involvement in the project.
Hines, the program manager of NASA’s Biomolecular Systems Research Program (BSRP) and the manager of the Astrobionics Program at the NASA Ames Research Center, credits the development of the project to over five years of research, planning and cooperation between NASA and Stanford technologists.
“[GeneSat-1] was a culmination of several ideas of using satellites and micro technology for biological experiments,” Hines said.
According to Kovacs, E. coli bacteria were chosen for the space experiment because their short lifecycles allow for numerous generations to be observed over the course of just a year, and because the bacteria can be put into a sequence of hibernation in the event of unexpected launch delays.
While traveling through Earth’s orbit, the satellite will maintain a scientifically precise living environment for the bacteria by maintaining a constant temperature and disposing of the waste products the bacteria produce. Then, once a day, the data the satellite collects from the E. coli is transmitted back to Earth, where it will be accessible to NASA researchers, Stanford technologists and several observers listening to the transmissions using ham radio equipment.
Antonio Ricco, chief technologist for the NASA Astrobionics Program and GeneSat-1 program architect, stressed the importance of the project’s pioneering technological aspects and said he believes that the mission itself should be viewed primarily as a technology demonstration rather than as a simple biological experiment. If GeneSat-1 goes well, it is possible it could be the first in a long line of such missions utilizing smaller, light-weight satellites for scientific purposes.
“What we believe this mission will do is allow us to do a lot more
space biology missions at lower cost,” Ricco said.
When it comes to launching new satellites into space, Kovacs claims NASA generally favors heavier models. The GeneSat-1 project satellite, which weighs only ten pounds, is itself testing the merits of lighter weight satellites. At the end of the mission, when the satellite reenters Earth’s orbit, NASA will have greater knowledge of the effects of space on living organisms, as well as new information on the performance of smaller satellites in low-orbit scientific experiments.
Santa Clara University, San Jose State University and the California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo also contributed to the development of the GeneSat-1 mission. The satellite was launched into orbit on Dec. 16 from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.