Volume 4, Number 2 May/June 1996
One of the objectives of NASA's Space Technology Enterprise is to "use the unique attributes of the space environment to enable industry creation of new and improved products and services." To carry out this objective, NASA's Office of Space Access and Technology sponsors Commercial Space Centers, which are non-profit consortia of industry, academia, and government partners that foster the use of space for commercial products and services. These payloads primarily reflect the interests and initiatives of industry partners.
In 1990, NASA contracted SPACEHAB, Inc. for the lease of their SPACEHAB Space Research Laboratories for a series of flights. STS-77 marks the fourth flight of the SPACEHAB under this contract, and it will carry ten commercial space product development payloads in the areas of biotechnology, electronic materials, polymers and agriculture as well as several experiments for other NASA payload organizations.
Advanced Organic Materials Separation Process (ADSEP)
The ADSEP enhances separation technologies for medical products. Separation, purification and classification of cells are limiting factors in biomedical research and pharmaceutical drug development. Advanced separation technology is sponsored by the Consortium for Materials Development in Space at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and developed by Space Hardware Optimization Technology, Inc. ADSEP is designed to foster separation capabilities for terrestrial commercial application and microgravity research. This particular mission, in collaboration with biomedical researchers, will focus on understanding gravitational effects on the manufacture of recombinant hemoglobin products. This area may have significant impact on blood transfusion products where transfusion of hemoglobin rather than whole blood, can reduce complications such as blood rejection, infectious disease transmission, and blood contamination in areas without suitable storage capability, etc.
BETSCE is a technology demonstration experiment for "sorption coolers." This technology has significant commercial potential.
Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA)
The CGBA, sponsored by BioServe Space Technologies, located at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo., and Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, houses a number of small test-tube-size fluid mixing syringes controlled at several different temperatures. The versatility of this apparatus allows investigations on a variety of molecular, cellular, tissue and small animal and plant systems. For this flight the apparatus will be configured into four temperature controlled lockers holding 272 individual experiments. A number of specific commercial objectives will be pursued in partnership with several of BioServe's industrial affiliates. These will include evaluation of pharmaceutical production of bacterial and fungal systems with Bristol-Myers Squibb, crystallization of oligonucleotides-RNA to gain 3-D structural information for drug design in AIDS research with NeXstar and Amgen, administration of a proprietary chemical to enhance bone marrow macrophage differentiation with Chiron Corp., and tests of a proprietary cell growth inhibitors (cancer research) with Synchrocell, Lockheed Martin and the Kansas State University Research Foundation.
Mecurous chloride crystal grown on Earth. Space processing in the Space Experiment Facility will produce crystals with fewer inhomogeneities, improving optical performance.
Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (PGBA)
The PGBA will be flown for the first time. This two-locker plant growth chamber has been developed by BioServe in collaboration with the Wisconsin Center for Automation and Robotics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The plant growth area of the chamber is 12" by 10" with a 10" plant height and 2.5" root depth. In collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, the commercial goal is to investigate the change in the production of secondary metabolites in microgravity. Investigations will include the study of Artimisia annua, which produces an antimalarial compound, and Cataranthus roseus, which produces chemotherapeutic compounds. Working with Dean Food, a study will be made of the effects of space flight on starch, sugar and fatty acid content of special strains of spinach plants. A forestry products company is interested in the lignin production and reaction wood formation in loblolly pine, and clover plants will be included to study the nitrogen fixation mechanism in microgravity at the behest of Research Seeds, Inc. While a nine day mission is not very long for plant growth, the sponsoring affiliates hope to establish the potential for long duration missions to benefit development of new products derived from plants.
Space Experiment Facility
The Space Experiment Facility sponsored by the Consortium for Materials Development in Space, University of Alabama at Huntsville, will have an opaque and a transparent furnace. The transparent furnace will melt and grow vapor transport crystals of mecurous chloride in the microgravity environment. Mecurous chloride is an acoustical optical material with applications in optical delay lines and Bragg cells for optical signal processors. Space processing is expected to reduce inhomogeneities which degrade optical performance. The industrial partner is Westinghouse Corporation. The opaque furnace will sinter a series of aluminum, copper composites for further investigation of defect control phenomena in microgravity environment. The knowledge of the sintering defect behavior observed will be used to produce improved tool bit materials used on Earth. The industrial partners for this project are Teledyne Advanced Materials and McDonnell Douglas Corporation.
IMMUNE-3
Immune-3 is sponsored by BioServe Space Technologies with their industrial affiliate Chiron Corporation. The goal is to test the ability of Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF-I) to prevent or reduce the detrimental effects of space flight on the immune and skeletal systems of rats. Space flight has been shown to induce alterations in immune responses and reductions in skeletal development in rats; this may model immune disorders and impaired skeletal development on Earth. A demonstrated ability to counter reduced bone formation and immune system impairment on space flight may provide new product markets for Chiron on Earth and a future therapeutic for long-term space missions. Along with extensive ground-based research, acquired knowledge could be used to develop protocols designed to protect the immune systems of patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy, to treat patients with AIDS, primary immune-deficiency and a broad range of infectious diseases. The applications toward a variety of bone disorders are currently under investigation and should be aided by the findings of this flight investigation.
Commercial Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG)
The CPCG investigations on this flight will use two techniques. One is a process driven by temperature change that will produce crystals of a new form of recombinant human insulin provided by Eli Lilly; the other uses vapor diffusion to crystallize different proteins with objectives that address a range of diseases. The insulin crystals will support a better understanding of the protein's structure to help Eli Lilly, an affiliate of the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography (CMC)-University of Alabama at Birmingham, understand the mode of action of this new form of insulin. The microgravity environment helps to produce large, well-ordered protein crystals that can be used for X-ray diffraction studies to determine the three-dimensional structures of the individual proteins. Knowledge of these structures can facilitate the development of new or more effective pharmaceuticals to combat diseases.
The vapor diffusion experiments will use flight hardware that is an improved adaptation of the most common laboratory method for growing protein crystals. It will provide for 128 individual experiments. The temperature driven hardware will use sample holders of different volumes, with different temperature gradients, to test systems that provide industry with more operational flexibility, and allow smaller amounts of expensive sample materials.
Gas Permeable Polymer Materials
The Gas Permeable Polymer Materials is flying the third in the series of flights to use microgravity for development of enhanced polymers for manufacture of improved rigid gas permeable contact lenses. Polymer development of lens material in microgravity has shown polymers can be formed that will have greater uniformity of structure, increased gas permeability allowing greater oxygen flow for improved comfort to wearers, greater durability of material, and greater machinability in the manufacture process. NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Paragon Vision Sciences of Phoenix, Arizona, are the partners in this commercial research effort.
Commercial Float Zone Furnace
The Commercial Float Zone Furnace experiments have the goal of producing large, ultra-pure compound semiconductor and mixed oxide crystals for electronic devices and infrared detectors. Three international agencies are cooperating on the project: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the German Space Agency (DARA). The U.S. samples of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium antinomide (GaSb) have been prepared by the University of Florida in cooperation with industrial participant Atramet, Inc. A liquid encapsulate around the float zone to promote the growth of a larger crystal in the microgravity environment will be used. This technique was investigated on the first SPACEHAB mission in 1993. The parabolic-ellipsoid mirror type furnace is provided by the CSA and DARA. The furnace flew on the D-2 Spacelab mission in 1993. Telescience will be used during the mission to enable researchers on the ground to view and/or control the melts and work with the astronauts to control the melts.
Fluids Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus-2 (FGBA-2)
The FGBA-2 payload is expected to accomplish a number of important commercial objectives. First, the FGBA-2 payload represents a significant evolutionary step in fluids management technology. For The Coca-Cola Company, the primary corporate sponsor, FGBA-2 will provide a test bed to determine if carbonated beverages can be produced from separately stored carbon dioxide, water and flavored syrups and determine if the resulting fluids can be made available for consumption without bubble nucleation and resulting foam formation. Coca-Cola also will be verifying and obtaining additional data on the effects of space flight on changes in taste perception. Such data might aid in understanding altered tastes in specific target populations on Earth, such as the elderly, and eventually lead to altered beverage formulations that could increase hydration for such individuals and for astronauts. The Coca-Cola Company is also supporting a long-term corporate goal to make its beverages pervasive wherever humans live and work. BioServe Space Technologies, the sponsor, is using the technology and lessons learned from this mission to apply to other commercial space-life sciences activities including the development of plant growth and cell culture biotechnology facilities, closed environment research facilities and other projects that require management of two-phase fluids. Payload health and engineering data will be collected along with video images documenting behavior of the carbonated beverages during transfer operations. Ohmeda, Lockheed Martin and ASTRONAUTICS are the other commercial partners in this commercial research effort.
The IAE is a 14-meter (46-foot) diameter dish-shaped antenna, weighing only about 60 kilograms (132 pounds), and supported by three 28-meter (92-feet) long inflatable struts. The IAE antenna reflector is made of very lightweight, thin aluminized Mylar (0.0064 millimeters thickness). The inflatable support struts are made of a thin rubberized material called Neoprene-coated Kevlar.
For more information, contact Ed Gabris at NASA Headquarters. Phone: 202/358-4577, E-mail: egabris@osat.hq.nasa.gov Please mention that read about it in Innovation.
