Short Takes – 9-9-24

Upcoming Launch – Polaris Dawn. SpaceX.com update. Pull quote: “SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, September 10 at 3:38 a.m. ET for Falcon 9’s launch of Polaris Dawn to low-Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There are two additional launch opportunities within the four-hour window at 5:23 a.m. ET and 7:09 a.m. ET. If needed, backup opportunities are available on Wednesday, September 11 at the same times.”

Skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity as a platform for regeneration modeling and drug screening. Cell.com article. More than a little bio-geeky, but potentially groundbreaking for long-term zero gravity missions. Pull quote: “Gene set enrichment analysis of engineered muscle cultured in microgravity, compared to normal gravity conditions, highlighted a metabolic shift toward lipid and fatty acid metabolism, along with increased apoptotic gene expression. The addition of pro-regenerative drugs, insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and a 15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase inhibitor (15-PGDH-i), partially inhibited the effects of microgravity. In summary, microgravity mimics aspects of impaired myogenesis, and the addition of these drugs could partially inhibit the effects induced by microgravity.”

Request for Information for OSAM-1 Partnerships. SAM.gov request for information. Note: OSAM-1 mission was canceled in March. Pull quote: “NASA is exploring potential partnerships for alternate use cases for the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing-1 (OSAM-1) spaceflight hardware, test facilities, and relevantly skilled personnel in lieu of the original flight demonstration.  NASA is seeking responses that describe alternate use cases that will benefit commercial, civil, and national objectives, thereby advancing domestic leadership in In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities.”

Magical equation unites quantum physics, Einstein’s general relativity in a first. InterestingEngineering.com article. Pull quote: “To link them, the researchers developed a mathematical framework that “Redefined the mass and charge of leptons (fundamental particles) in terms of the interactions between the energy of the field and the curvature of the spacetime.” “The obtained equation is covariant in space-time and invariant with respect to any Planck scale. Therefore, the constants of the universe can be reduced to only two quantities: Planck length and Planck time,” the researchers note.”