On the Tuesday before Easter, some 800 kilometers off the coast of California, a space capsule attached to three brightly-colored parachutes glides down towards the Pacific.
On the Tuesday before Easter, some 800 kilometers off the coast of California, a space capsule attached to three brightly-colored parachutes glides down towards the Pacific. The Dragon space capsule is returning valuable cargo to earth: 250 test tubes containing human stem cells that spent a month orbiting our planet at an altitude of 400 kilometers on the International Space Station ISS. The recovered tubes are shipped to Los Angeles and then flown across the country to Florida, where they arrive at the Kennedy Space Center on Good Friday. The next day, two scientists remove the screws from the lid and open the box. It is the moment of truth.
Far away in Zurich, Oliver Ullrich holds his breath. The professor of anatomy at the University of Zurich is the director of the UZH Space Hub (see box). The experiment with stem cells on the ISS is his brainchild, and that of his colleague Cora Thiel, a molecular biology researcher and head of the Institute of Anatomy at UZH. The two scientists and their team hope that their space project will provide new insights into how gravity influences the development and functioning of cells.
Read more at University Of Zurich
Image: On 6 March 2020 at 23.50 the launch vehicle took off from Cape Canaveral with the spaceship Dragon - on board 250 test tubes with stem cells from UZH. (Image: zVg.)
