The experience of a science student from Nanaimo en route to the International Space Station

WATCH: Grade 11 students from Nanaimo District High School were at the Kennedy Space Station in Florida on Friday morning to watch the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket take their space experience to the booth. muscular atrophy.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Friday morning.

He will dock at the International Space Station on Monday and when he does, part of the payload will be left there by an experiment made by three grade 11 students from Nanaimo.

Megan Poteryko, Parker Davie and Abigail Sitler were at Cape Canaveral to watch him go out into space.

"The launch was really amazing to see," Sitler said. "None of us really expected our experience to win and seeing it launch into space was a surreal experience."

They were one of 31 experiments selected from nearly 1500 entries

NDSS students thought that muscle atrophy would be interesting and relevant.

"In a space flight of only five to ten days, astronauts lose 20% of their knowledge. Megan Poteryko

With the help of teachers like Mary Anne Perkins, they settled on tiny planar flatworms

"What they have in the first tube, these are Plenaria, there are six here, "said Perkins. "In the second tube, they are the same worms but they have been injected with a supplement to maintain muscle mass, Carnitine.It has been used here for people and now they are wondering if this will prevent muscle loss. in space. "

" We previously weighed them before we could weigh them again and what we hope to see are those that were untreated, they will have less muscle mass because, obviously, they have a muscular atrophy ", said Poteryko

How could such an opportunity not increase students' interest in science?

Students hope to present their findings at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC next year

It cost about $ 22,000 to send their experience to space.

] Community sponsors and donors, including the Island Savings Credit Union, Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools, BC Hydro, Magellan Aerospace and the Blue Moon Fund, funded this initiative.