19 May 2017
Christina Cheung is one of the support scientists for NASA’s Fruit Fly Lab and the outreach lead for the Space Biosciences Division at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Christina is blogging from Ames and from Kennedy Space Center in Florida about her experiences during the pre-flight, flight, and post-flight periods of the FFL-02 experiment. It is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in June 2017 aboard SpaceX’s eleventh commercial resupply services mission.
Post 2 - April 17, 2017: Shipment of FFL-02’s Precious Cargo
Shipment Day is here! The day has finally arrived and the whole team is anxious for it to begin. This isn’t the first time we’ve prepared for packing the truck. Earlier this year, our team was told right at the last minute that an anticipated launch was delayed…right as the truck was at the front gate of Ames Research Center. So, naturally, we wondered in our heads: Would this really be the day?
Monday morning started quite early, around 7 a.m. We came into the labs to finish packing up the flies that we were sending to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each of the 50 boxes of flies was held together by two cardboard trays and tied like a present with natural rope. Then, groups of two or three boxes were tied together with rope for extra security.
Lastly, stacks of five boxes were securely tied down along the edges of the pallet, leaving a large opening in the center. This orientation allows for ample air flow for the live fruit flies, despite being stacked. As an extra precaution, we wove temperature sensors and their wires through our precious cargo of flies so that we could monitor the temperature during their long journey. Because of the rapid life cycle of fruit flies, some of these will be the ancestors of the flies that we send into space!
Just as scheduled, the truck and its two drivers arrived to pick up a whole mission worth of supplies, including Willie the steam kettle, the stirrer and the large table that the kettle will be clamped to. Then, they picked up two pallets worth of supplies. Lastly, we loaded and secured the pallet of flies carefully onto the truck. We spent some time finalizing the arrangement of cargo, making sure that it was all secure for the cross-country journey.
As I have learned, you can never have too much bubble wrap and it’s always smart to keep tape and a pair of scissors in your back pocket when dealing with cargo. Finally, the door of the truck was sealed to ensure that no one else could touch our contents, and our team sent the truck and its drivers off on its cross-country journey from California to Florida.
It was a long, but rewarding day: five hours of packing, the culmination of what took many months of work to prepare. As the truck leaves, it also means that Team 1 of the science team will be leaving soon to meet the flies and supplies at Kennedy where they will set up the lab and maintain the flies. Team 2, which includes myself, will join them at Kennedy two weeks before launch to support the majority of the pre-flight activities.
While it can feel like it’s only one small piece of the puzzle in getting ready, it’s a major step in the right direction as we continue to work towards the goal of launching our FFL-02 experiment.
Post 1 - April 14, 2017: Preparations to Ship
Our preparations for shipment started the Friday before the "white-glove" truck arrived at NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The truck that we ordered was no ordinary cargo truck! It features specialized services such as temperature control and around-the-clock driving and updates. Because of the nature of our cargo, this was required to be sure that our flies and supplies get to Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the best shape.
That Friday, we folded a hundred cardboard trays and transferred our 1,000 bottles of flies to the new trays. We gathered all of our fly bottles to color-code them with the tape that secures the plugs on the bottles, to indicate the different genetic lines of the flies.
We then secured our steam kettle, appropriately named after Willie from "Steamboat Willie", to a pallet and wrapped the accompanying stirrer with bubble wrap. At Ames, Willie and the stirrer have been vital in cooking and mixing 20 liters of fly food a week to maintain the large population of flies. They will be our backup plan while at Kennedy, if we need more than the fly food that will be shipped to us by the principal investigator’s team.
Lastly, we packed our science box with miscellaneous supplies that we may need at Kennedy. We saved last-minute items to be packed on Monday morning right before the truck arrives at Ames.
Next time: Read about what it takes to ship an entire experiment, including a thousand bottles of fruit flies and Willie the steam kettle, to Kennedy.
Post 0 - An Introduction to Our Mission: Fruit Fly Lab-02
Hello! My name is Christina Cheung, and I'm a contracted support scientist for the Fruit Fly Lab at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The most common question that I get asked as I meet new people goes along the lines of “What do you do for a living?” As I start with the short and sweet answer of “I work at NASA's Ames Research Center,” sometimes an opportunity comes along to explain further that I work with Drosophila melanogaster, more commonly known as the fruit fly, and that I have the opportunity to send thousands of them to the International Space Station. Of course, the response that immediately follows is one of eye-widening and fascination. Then a slew of questions begins, ranging from a simple “But, why?” to a lengthier, “How does that even happen??”
So, in this blog over the next few weeks, I'm going to give you a behind-the-scenes view into our experiment!
To start, let me briefly address those questions: Fruit flies are a long-established model organism that have been used for scientific research both on Earth and in space. For the FFL-02 mission, the Fruit Fly Lab from NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley is partnering with the Bodmer Lab from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California to study the effects of spaceflight on the cardiovascular system. This will be done using the Vented Fly Box hardware platform, a simple but effective system created at Ames, which will house fruit fly lines with different genetic makeups (more details about the platform in a later post!). The fruit flies, which are a great model to study cardiovascular systems, will be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will spend time in the space environment of the International Space Station before returning to Earth for further study.
The FFL-02 mission is made up of three different stages: the pre-flight, the flight launch and execution of the experiment onboard the station, and the post-flight activities - all of which are essential for the entire experiment. For the eleventh commercial resupply flight of SpaceX to the International Space Station, which will launch FFL-02, I have a unique opportunity to take readers on a journey of what it takes to send the experiment to space. I am by no means the sole person involved, but rather I am merely one scientist of a team of incredibly dedicated members. All of us work tirelessly on this experiment, which will help provide insight into long-term space travel and improve human lives on Earth. I hope this personal account of this experience provides a glimpse into the incredible workings of the Fruit Fly Lab for the FFL-02 mission.
[Image]
(A) Securing the trays of flies onto a pallet.
(B) The trays of flies being tied like a present and secured with rope.
(C) 1,000 bottles of flies, color-coded, secured, and ready to be packaged for the truck.
(D) The steam kettle, stirrer, and other supplies, ready to be loaded onto the truck.
(F) Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are used for scientific research both on Earth and in space.