KentuckySpace is a non-profit enterprise involving a consortium of universities and private organizations pursuing space-related education, R&D, small satellite design and launch operations.
[Kentucky Space readers, by the end of this week, I'll be blogging exclusively on the Kentucky Space web site. Please note: If you're taking the blog feed, it has changed. Use this feed URL instead if you consume Kentucky Space in Google Reader or a client like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire.]
Flight readiness review for STS-132 underway today. The current target date for launch of NanoRacks and Kentucky Space hardware is May 14.
In other news, the managing partner for NanoRacks, Jeffrey Manber, recently participated in question and answer with the "SciGuy" at the Houston Chronicle, Eric Berger. Give it a read.
As the Kentucky Space blog transitions to the new web site, you may want to use this feed URL to get the latest blog posts. The old feed URL will no longer be updating. Kentucky Space is also @KySpace on Twitter.
[Kentucky Space readers, by the end of this week, I'll be blogging exclusively on the Kentucky
Space web site. Please note: If you're taking the blog feed, it has changed. Use this feed URL instead if you consume Kentucky Space in Google Reader or a client like FeedDemon or NetNewsWire.]
Presentations from the CubeSat Developer's Workshop at which Kentucky Space was prominently featured have been made available.
Kentucky Space is excited to have a presentation booth within the Kentucky BIO Pavilion at BIO in Chicago, IL. May 3rd – May 6th. The BIO International Convention is the largest global event for the biotechnology industry.
As part of the Kentucky Space Exomedicine research initiative, we are looking forward to meeting potential biotechnology partners interested in performing microgravity research on the International Space Station.
Recorded at the recent CubeSat Developer's Workshop, University of Kentucky graduate student Daniel Erb described CubeLabstm and the opportunities, based on this new standard, for low cost, repeatable microgravity research aboard the International Space Station.
Following the successful delivery of the first NanoRacks Platform on Shuttle Discovery earlier this month, the second such unit is manifested aboard Atlantis, designated STS-132, for May.
This photo shows the Astrotech payload processing facility at Port Canaveral, Fla., where workers dressed in "bunny suits" lift a cargo pallet into the Russian-built Mini-Research Module-1. The second platform is stowed in this module for flight.
The NanoRacks Platform powers up to 16 individual "CubeLabs," each of which can host microgravity research experiments. This standard method for doing microgravity research offers many more organizations an opportunity to do repeatable, cost efficient work in the bio-sciences, for example.
With regularly scheduled trips to the station, Kentucky Space is now working with organizations to put their experimental programs on the ISS.
What’s important to understand about this space research is that it isn’t about space. It’s about how earthly cells and molecules react and change in the micro-gravity environment of space. The economic and social implications of that research could be huge.
For example, most medical research about how humans react to micro-gravity has been focused on preventing harm to astronauts. But space could have beneficial effects on cells that might lead to more effective treatments for various diseases and conditions. Research already is being conducted on the space station to see how micro-gravity changes bacteria, which could lead to more effective vaccines for dangerous salmonella and staph infections.
'What could the applications of all of this be? The answer is, we don’t know, which is the foundation for all science,' Kimel said. 'Many scientific breakthroughs come when you’re looking for something else.'
Incorporating launch and ground station footage, Kentucky Space students describe the "Frontier" mission that took place in late March from Wallops. Congratulations to all the team members on a successful mission!
Here is a terrific view from NASA television of the logistics module in Discovery's bay prior to being lifted out and attached to the International Space Station.
The hatch between the two was opened earlier this morning and supplies, including the NanoRacks platform and two CubeLabs, will soon be moved to their permanent places inside the station to begin work.
Kentucky Space had the opportunity yesterday to talk about its work at the 6th annual Kentucky Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference in Lexington, which for one day was the undisputed intellectual capital of the commonwealth.
In brief presentations to the attendees at the first general session, Kris Kimel, president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, which is the managing partner for Kentucky Space, described how breakthroughs in science bring wealth, not just jobs. For a state like Kentucky, which leans heavily on well known and traditional industries, supporting this kind of innovation is critically important. Locations with concentrations of technical and human capital attract talent and investment. It's a virtuous cycle.
Later in the day, Kentucky Space students Jason Bratcher and Samir Rawashdeh detailed the work being done in Kentucky Space to develop a particular kind of talent and unique technologies during an extended poster display by organizations and companies doing cutting edge work in the commonwealth. With the recent launches of Frontier-1 and Monday's Discovery flight playing on a looping video nearby, passersby, who work with nano-technologies, and in the medical and material sciences themselves, were sufficiently impressed and many lingered to chat. The words "Kentucky" and "Space" next to each other have a certain shock value. But given its emphasis on building small spacecraft doing low cost, high value science, given the recent successes in launching these Kentucky-built craft, given the potential for standardized research in "plug and play" micro-labs built by students in Kentucky and set to be delivered by the now-docked Discovery (video below), that unfamiliarity may not last. Long known for its product on grassy field and beneath eastern mountain, Kentucky, instead, could become a place where talented people choose to stay and find discovery overhead.