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Experiments with worms and artificial retinas will be shipped to space on February 20 aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft, according to a NASA announcement.
The freighter is scheduled to take off no earlier than 12:36 a.m. EST (1736 GMT) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, if all goes as planned. Only a limited number of US media can make it to the scene due to quarantine protocols associated with the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Cygnus will launch to the International Space Station aboard an Antares rocket and arrive at the orbiting lab two days later, according to NASA.
Video: Watch the launch of the NG-14 freighter from Northrop Grumman!
Some of the research carried out aboard Cygnus includes an experiment to study the muscle strength of worms, an experiment on how microgravity can help artificial retina production, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s SpaceBorne Computer-2 experiment.
SpaceBorne Computer-2 “aims to demonstrate that current ground data processing of experimental space station data can be performed in orbit” NASA said in the same statement. In general, processing data in space can reduce the amount of data sent to the ground, freeing up communication channels for other tasks.
Cargo ships also carry essential items for spaceflight, including fresh food, equipment replacements, or other items that crews may need to live in space for months at a time. After a few months, the crew filled the departing Cygnus cargo ships with trash, which burned when the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere.
When the last Cygnus spacecraft left the space station in january, he performed a high-speed 5G communication experiment with the latest iteration of a series of science experiments on the behavior of fire in space, called Saffire-V. NASA plans to use these fire studies to improve the safety of astronauts on future missions, especially in deep space.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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