IML-2 Status Report #16
 
 
IML-2 Public Affairs Status Report #16
6:00 a.m. CDT, July 16, 1994
7/18:17 MET
Spacelab Mission Operations Control
Marshall Space Flight Center
 
    The STS-65 crew members aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia were busy
overnight, conducting life, materials and fluid science experiments for the
second International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2) mission.
 
    Mission Specialist Don Thomas made video observations of male fruit flies
(Drosophila melanogaster) after transferring two containers from the European
Space Agency's Biorack centrifuge and four containers from the incubator into
the facility glovebox.  Principal Investigator Dr. Roberto Marco of Madrid,
Spain, is studying the life cycle of male fruit flies exposed to both simulated
gravity and microgravity during IML-2 in an effort to understand more about how
space travel affects their aging process.  Accelerated aging was noticed on
previous flights.  Knowledge gained from this experiment could prove useful to
researchers studying the factors which influence aging in humans on Earth.

    Two experiments in the German Space Agency's Slow Rotating Centrifuge
Microscope (called NIZEMI), continued studying the amount of gravity necessary
to cause a reaction in plants.  Thomas selected cuvettes, or containers, of a
type of green algae known as Chara and placed them into the NIZEMI facility
where they were exposed to varying levels of gravity and videotaped to document
their response.
 
    Mission Specialist Leroy Chiao made additional observations of selected
samples of chemically prepared cress roots in the NIZEMI facility as part of an
experiment to determine the lowest level at which roots become sensitive to
changes in gravity.  After this mission, Dr. Dieter Volkmann of Bonn, Germany,
principal investigator for this experiment expects to draw conclusions
concerning the ability of plants to adapt to changes in gravity levels.  Before
plants can be considered as potential food and oxygen sources during extended
spaceflights, scientists must understand more about how plants react to gravity
changes in space.
 
    After transferring containers of slime mold cells from the Biorack
incubator, Thomas connected a 35mm camera to the container, providing images of
the slime mold after approximately five days of growth in space.  A radiation
detector, attached to the petri-dish-type culture container, is recording the
amount of radiation the slime mold is being subjected to during the mission.
Slime mold, which is classified as both an animal and a plant, is being used in
this IML-2 investigation because it has a specific life cycle, going from an
amoeba to a fruiting body.  Principal Investigator Dr. Takeo Ohnishi of Nara,
Japan, is studying a radiation-sensitive strain of slime mold Dictyostelium
discoideum (which can not repair itself after exposure to radiation) and a
wild-type strain of the same slime mold (which repairs itself after radiation
damage) to distinguish between the effects of microgravity and cosmic rays.
 
    Chiao opened the window to the goldfish tank in the Japanese-provided
Aquatic Animal Experiment Unit (AAEU), starting their daylight cycle.  He
closed the window for their night period before his shift ended.  Also in the
AAEU, Thomas observed the newts and reported that they continue to appear
healthy.  No new eggs were hatched since the last observation period.
 
    Overnight a science team from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York,
sent commands from the Spacelab Mission Operations Control center in Huntsville
to the European Space Agency's Bubble, Drop and Particle Unit (BDPU) to conduct
another fluid science experiment .  During the first part of this experiment
run, approximately 20 drops of the liquid fluorinert were injected into
silicone oil to help Principal Investigator Dr. Shankar Subramanian and other
researchers study the movement and shape of liquid drops inside a container
that is warmer at one end than the other.  Later, Subramanian studied the speed
of additional fluorinert drops when the temperature at the warm end was
increased.  Since bubbles do not behave in space like they do on Earth,
scientists must learn how to manage bubbles and drops in order to predict
future engineering applications and hardware designs.
 
    Just before Chiao took his lunch break, a pump shut off during an
experiment run in the Applied Research on Separation Methods Using Space
Electrophoresis (called RAMSES). Since the same anomaly had occurred during an
experiment run the night before, ground team members decided to leave the
facility off for one hour.  Chiao successfully restarted the facility and the
experiment resumed to its normal completion.
 
    Thomas gave several reports on the position of an 8mm (3/8 inch) spherical
sample of nickel-niobium, as it was levitated and melted in the German-
developed Electromagnetic Containerless Processing Facility (called TEMPUS)
last night.  Dr. William Johnson from the California Institute of Technology is
the principal investigator for this experiment, which is designed to learn more
about the physical properties of glass-like metallic materials.
 
    Thomas also collected the third of five sets of air samples inside the
Spacelab module and in the mid-deck of the Shuttle. Information from this
experiment, which is part of NASA's Extended Duration Orbiter Medical Project,
will add to results from previous flights to determine the air quality inside
the Space Shuttle and Spacelab during longer stays in space.
 
    During the next 12 hours, science crew activities will include spending
time in the Lower Body Negative Pressure device, monitoring the goldfish,
Medaka and newts, and conducting materials science experiments in the TEMPUS
and BDPU facilities.

 
NASA issues four status reports daily on STS-65/IML-2 activities: science
operations reports from Spacelab Mission Operations Control in Huntsville at
approximately 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., and orbiter operations reports from Mission
Control in Houston at approximately 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.