The results in STS-87 mission were compared with the Mir station results. The Brassica embryos were developing in 15 days postpollination during an experiment on the Shuttle. At Mir station, the plants grew for almost 6 months. were carried out jointly on the Shuttle during the STS-87 mission and Mir station. The gravitation sensitive mechanisms in cells were investigated ( Kern, 1999).Įxperiments with seed-to-seed cultivation of Brassica rapa L. Fruiting body orientation clearly reflected the gravity conditions. The PGBA had similar dimensions ( Zabel et al., 2014).įor example, fungi were investigated in Space Shuttle flights: Neurospora crassa in STS-9, STS-32, and STS-47 Physarum in STS-61, STS-42, and STS-65 Saccharomyces in STS-42, STS-55, and STS-65. The shoot zone was 23 cm high and the root zone was 4.5 cm deep. The Plant Growth Facility (PGF) had the same dimensions but more sophisticated equipment.ĪSC had a cultivation area of 177 cm 2. The system allowed only seedlings to be grown due to the limited volume inside. PGU was a block of 51×36×27 cm 3 and carried six plant growth chambers with plants. For example, there were systems such as the Plant Growth Unit (PGU), Astroculture System (ASC), Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (PGBA), and Kit C Plant Growth Chambers (EPO-Kit C). But biological equipment was developed and installed at a modern level, taking into account the experience in the Salyut and Mir stations. This provided, on the one hand, additional opportunities for the delivery of equipment and biological samples to the Mir station, and on the other hand, provided the opportunity to continue experiments at the Mir station that had been started on the Space Shuttles.īasically, biological experiments were carried out as part of educational programs. In conducting biological experiments, the possibility of docking the Shuttles with the Mir station helped. Most missions were limited to 1–2 weeks in orbit. In addition, due to the limited resource of the Shuttle in orbit, biological experiments were limited in duration. Therefore the size and weight of the biological equipment was also severely limited. In particular, a number of biological studies were carried out, for which they were clearly not adapted. However, the Shuttle missions in practice became broader than planned for their design and construction. It was planned to use them for short space missions as auxiliary ships. The Space Shuttle ships were designed as transport ships for delivering cargo and crews to low Earth orbits. Galina Nechitailo, Alexey Kondyurin, in Biological Experiments in Space, 2021 6.2 Biological experiments in Space Shuttle The three substacks of 32 cells each were connected electrically in parallel as shown in Figure 40. The 96 cells used common hydrogen, oxygen, and coolant manifolds. The power section of the Space Shuttle fuel cell power plant, shown in Figure 39, consisted of 96 cells, arranged in three substacks of 32 cells each. The cell assembly consisted of the cell and two separator plates. The ERP also formed the hydrogen compartment of the cell. To accommodate the changing volume of electrolyte, an electrolyte reservoir plate (ERP) made of sintered nickel contacted the fuel cell anode (hydrogen consuming electrode for alkaline cells). The Space Shuttle fuel cell used an alkaline 35% KOH electrolyte contained within an asbestos matrix, and operated at a nominal temperature of 93 ☌ and a pressure of ∼4 atmospheres. Each cell contained an active area of 465 cm 2 (21.6 cm × 21.6 cm). The Space Shuttle fuel cell is shown in Figures 37 and 38. A more highly developed and improved version of the Apollo fuel cell was selected to provide the on-board power of the Space Shuttle because, while advances in membrane technology had been made by the early 1070s, the potassium hydroxide fuel cell still offered the best option to meet the Space Shuttle life and performance requirements. The nominal power consumption of the Space Shuttle was 7000 W (plus additional power required for payloads it was carrying) and that of the Apollo was ∼1690–4260 W. The Space Shuttle was a substantially larger, more versatile, and more complex spacecraft than the Apollo.
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