A squad of spacefaring rodents travelling at 17,500mph are due to dock at the International Space Station today, becoming the first American “mousetronauts” to be given a return ticket into orbit.
Snuggled together in a cargo facility known as the rodent transporter that is packed aboard a Dragon spacecraft, the 40 mice blasted off on Saturday from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, on a medical research mission that could ultimately lead to doctors being able to reverse osteoporosis in humans.
“If successful, this will have tremendous implications for patients on Earth,” said the project’s chief scientist, Chia Soo of the University of California, Los Angeles.
The mice were part of a 2,700kg cargo on Dragon, which was lifted into orbit by a 23-storey Falcon 9 rocket operated by the commercial space flight company SpaceX. Half of the mice are due to return next month when the Dragon splashes down in the Pacific.
They are due to dock at the ISS, 350 miles above the Earth, today, where their human crewmates will help them to disembark and place them in more comfortable habitats.
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During their stay in orbit, they will take part in a study known as NELL-1, which will analyse the potential of a newly discovered protein therapy to rebuild bone. The study is important both to life in space, where astronauts suffer extreme bone loss owing to the lack of gravity, and on Earth, where one in three women over 50, and one in four men in the same age bracket, suffer from osteoporosis-related fractures.
“Men and women past the age of 50, on the average, lose about a half per cent of bone mass per year. But in microgravity conditions the astronaut, on average, loses anywhere from 1 to 2 per cent of bone mass per month,” Professor Chia said.
“If it can work for microgravity- related bone loss, then it could have increased use for patients one day on Earth who have bone loss from trauma or ageing,” Professor Chia told Spaceflight Now.