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Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus Science Insert - 01 (CSI-01)
06.26.08

Overview | Description | Applications | Operations | Results | Publications | Images

Experiment/Payload Overview

Brief Summary

Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus Science Insert - 01 (CSI-01) is comprised of two educational experiments that will be utilized by middle school students in the Unites States and Malaysia. One experiment is examining seed germination in microgravity including gravitropism (plant growth towards gravity) and phototropism (plant growth towards light). The second experiment is examining how microgravity affects the model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans, a small nematode worm. Thousands of students began participating in the experiments in February 2007.

Principal Investigator

  • Louis Stodieck, Ph.D., BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

    • Co-Investigator(s)/Collaborator(s)

  • Nathaniel Szewczyk, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
  • Thomas Drummond, Orion's Quest, Detroit, MI
  • Peter Lawrie, Orion's Quest, Detroit, MI
  • Jacob Freeman, BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
  • Robert Johnsen, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
  • David Baillie, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia,Canada
  • Mazlan Othman, National Space Agency, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    • Payload Developer

    BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

    Sponsoring Agency

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

    Expeditions Assigned

    |14|15|

    Previous ISS Missions

    A similar investigation, Space Technology and Research Students (STARSTM) flew on STS-93 and STS-107.

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    Experiment/Payload Description

    Research Summary

    • CSI-01 is an educational payload designed to interest middle school students in science, technology, engineering and math by providing the opportunity for these students to participate in near real-time research conducted on board the ISS.


    • The seed germination experiment will provide the opportunity for students to begin to understand how gravity affects germination and plant development. Seeds germinated on orbit will allow students the opportunity to examine both root and stem growth in microgravity. A second experiment using Caenorhabditis elegans, a small nematode worm, will examine multi-generational and long term growth of C. elegans.


    • Each experiment is designed to be easily reproducible in the classroom providing hands-on experience to the students. The students will be able to view the progress of the CSI-01 investigation on ISS via near real-time downlink and the World Wide Web. These experiments have the potential to impact between 7,500 - 11,250 students during the first phase of this program which is designed to be conducted on an annual basis.

    Description

    The launch of CGBA-4 will initiate a new K-12 education program for BioServe Space Technologies. This program is intended to provide middle school students teaching and learning opportunities based on research conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) through data and imagery downlinked and distributed directly into the classroom through the internet. National standards-based curriculum materials, including teacher guidebooks, student workbooks and complementary classroom experiments, will be used to ensure the greatest possible benefit to the participating students. The objective of CSI-01 is to launch small education experiments to be processed in CGBA-4 on an annual basis such that during every academic school year, a "live", on-orbit experiment will be available to schools.

    CSI-01 will support the multi-generational, long-term growth of Caenorhabditis elegans, a small nematode worm which is a model organism for detailed study of physiological processes that also affect humans. Multi-generational growth is essential for any hope of long-term human colonization of the cosmos. However, there is a lack of information about any species in space beyond three generations.

    In addition, even trips to the Moon or Mars will result in greater exposure to space radiation, although little is known about cumulative biological effects. C. elegans provides a simple model system in which to study multi-generational growth and radiation exposure in space. Cultures of C. elegans (wt CC1 and balancer eT1 strains) have been maintained on-board the ISS for periods well in excess of 3 months. Worms were grown through 10+ generations on the ISS using an automated culturing system employing defined liquid medium, commercial growth chambers, peristaltic pumps to pass worms and control instrumentation. The culturing system, the C. elegans Habitat, is housed in a temperature-controlled incubator located in the ISS module, Destiny. The worms are grown using C. elegans Maintenance Medium (CeMM) and gas exchange sterile chambers, Opticells, inside the C. elegans. Habitat, CHab. At approximately one month intervals, nematodes are automatically transferred from one chamber to a chamber with fresh CeMM. In this way, the nematode specimens reproduce and propagate for up to six months on orbit under nominal, well-defined environmental conditions. The hardware and living C. elegans specimens are returned to Earth. The specimens are then available to researchers on the ground to analyze such characteristics as organism morphology, muscle structure, genetic mutations, and alterations in gene expression, motility behavior and development.

    This C. elegans experiment will involve over 5000 middle school students (grade 6-9) located in Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, California, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Montana. In addition to the students from the U.S., there are several thousand students from Malaysia that will be participating. The C. elegans experiment is part of the Orion's Quest education program. Video of the worms can be seen on the website.

    The seed germination experiment provides the opportunity for over 2000, 3rd grade students to understand how gravity affects germination and plant development. Raphanus sativus, radish plants, and Medicago sativa, alfalfa plants, were germinated on orbit in a Garden Habitat (GHab). There were two activations of this experiment. The first half was activated in February 2007 and the remaining seeds were activated in March 2007. The activation was coordinated with the participating schools in order to have their seeds germinate at approximately the same time as the germination of the on-orbit plants. Students will examine both root and stem growth of the two plants.

    In addition to the R.sativus and M. sativa, other seeds were used in a passive experiment. These seeds include orchids and Malaysian red sandalwood and rosewood tree seeds. The orchid seeds will be returned to Earth after approximately six months of exposure to the space environment and will be planted along side control seeds for radiation studies. The Malaysian tree seeds will be distributed to students in Malaysia for germination.

    The seed germination experiment provides the opportunity for several thousand school children to participate in the investigation in conjunction with the Adventures of the Agronauts program at North Carolina State University.

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    Applications

    Space Applications

    Influences children to continue their education in the science, technology engineering and math areas and pursue related careers. This will promote education of the next generation of scientists, engineers, astronauts for the space program. In addition, scientific research with the CHab and GHab experiments is expected provide a greater understanding of the effects of space flight on biological organisms.

    Earth Applications

    CSI-01 provides a unique educational opportunity to encourage and inspire students to pursue careers in the scientific and technical fields by participating in near real-time research activities on the ISS.

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    Operations

    Operational Requirements

    CSI-01 is a simple automated payload with a minimal crew time requirement. Fifteen minutes of crew time will be required to activate CGBA-4 following installation of CSI-01. The three cameras and a lighting assembly inside CGBA-4 will allow the ground control team to monitor the progress of CSI-01. The cameras will be used to look at the CHab and GHAB using different Fields of Views (FOVs). These cameras will provide magnification of the image at approximately 2.4 x 3.2 mm FOV. The high magnification cameras will permit the detailed study of specimen morphology and movement behavior while the low magnification camera will permit quantification of population growth. Upon completion of operations, fifteen minutes of crew time will be required to deactivate CGBA-4. CSI-01 requires data downlink on a daily basis which will be accomplished through BioServe's Payload Operations and Control Center.

    Operational Protocols

    Once the payload is transferred from the Shuttle to the ISS and fully powered on, minimal crew time is required. The hardware for the experiment has been automated to allow imagery of the experiments independent of crew involvement. The ISS crew will implement a procedure to access the CSI on orbit and rotate the CHabs and GHab for additional imaging opportunities. BioServe will be able to monitor the experiment via data and video downlink.

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    Results/More Information

    During Expeditions 14 and 15 the CSI-01 CHab modules performed well throughout the approximately seven-month stay on the ISS. The return of the CHab modules and the specimens on STS-117/13A will enable analyses which will greatly expand on the results already obtained from images and video and analyzed by thousands of students from the U.S. and other countries.

    CHab 1 contained two strains of C. elegans, wild type (CC1) and a balancer strain (eT1). The eT1 strain was designed to allow accumulation of mutations without such mutations being lethal to the organism. This model enables the study of the biological effects of space radiation. The live worms recovered from the CSI-01 were surprising since the experiment was expected to be returned in late March 2007. It was believed that the nutrient value of the media could not sustain the nematodes over a six-month period of time. Several analyses will now be possible with the recovery of live worms including gene and protein molecular studies. CHab 2 was designed to support CC1 nematodes for a period of six-months in duration. As with CHab 1, live worms were recovered. These worms can now serve as a replicate to the CC1 worms recovered from CHab 1, thus strengthening any analyses to be done.

    At first glance, the worms recovered from the flight CHabs appeared comparable to worms from the equivalent ground control habitats. This would imply that multi-generational propagation (20+ generations over the six-month flight) of these relatively simple animals can occur normally. Much more detailed study will be required to determine if long-lasting adaptations to space occurred with the C. elegans. It should be noted, however, that this is the first study of its kind to look at long-term adaptations over a large number of generations in such a valuable model organism.

    Recovered specimens and samples will be analyzed in labs at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; University of Pittsburg, Pittsburg, PA and Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada (Countryman, Stefanie. "Worms" Email to Julie A. Robinson, ISS Program Scientist. 29 Jun. 2007).

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    Related Web Sites
  • STARS
  • Orion's Quest
  • Adventures of the Agronauts
  • Vancouver Sun
  • The Province
  • B.C. scientist to study radiation from space worms

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    Publications

    Results Publications

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      Related Publications
      • Woodard S, Goulart C, Hoehn A. Performance of the STARS life sciences payload during benchtop testing and mission simulations. International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES), Vancouver, Canada. July, ;SAE-Paper: 2003-01-2530. 2003
      • Goulart CV, Woodard S, Rupert M, Stodieck LS. Performance of the STARS? life sciences habitats in spaceflight and ground controls. 34th International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) Proceedings. ;SAE Technical Paper ICES: 2004-01-2394. 2004
      • Goulart CV, Woodard S, Campbell K. STARS? (Science Technology and Research Students): A Hands-on, Interactive, Scientific and Cultural Exchange Lesson. International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) Proceedings, Rome, Italy. ;SAE-Paper: 2005-01-3102. 2005

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      Images

      imageThis image shows the hardware that is used in the CSI-01 investigation. The CHab (Caenorhabditis elegans Habitat) and the GHab (Garden Habitat) is seen sitting inside of the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) developed by BioServe Space Technology. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThe Caenorhabditis elegans Habitat (CHab) houses the C. elegans investigation. This image shows the preparation of the samples that will fly on the International Space Station during Expedition 14. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThis image shows several Caenorhabditis elegans, small nematode worms, on-orbit during Expedition 14 on January 10, 2007. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThis image shows several Caenorhabditis elegans, small nematode worms, on-orbit during Expedition 14 on January 24, 2007. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThis image shows several Caenorhabditis elegans, small nematode worms, on-orbit during Expedition 14 on January 24, 2007. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThe Garden Habitiat (GHab) houses the seed germination experiment that will help students to understand how gravity affects germination and plant development. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageThis image shows two alfalfa seeds (smaller seeds) and two radish seeds (larger seeds) that are part of the classroom kit that will be used by students participating in CSI-01 experiment. Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageTime elapsed photography of the GHabs on the ISS and on Earth on day-1, shows initial germination and a visible small root in the alfalfa seed on the ground (right) compared to the seed on the ISS (left). Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageTime elapsed photography of the GHabs on Earth and on the ISS on day-9, shows the continued growth of the ground seeds (right) and little change is seen in the flight seeds (left). Image courtesy of NASA.
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      imageNASA Image: ISS014E20207 - Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, Expeditions 14 and 15 Flight Engineer, activates the alfalfa seeds in the Garden Habitat (G-Hab) as part of the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus Science Insert - 01 (CSI-01) investigation.
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      imageNASA Image: ISS014E20219 - A close up view of Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, Expeditions 14 and 15 Flight Engineer, activating the alfalfa seed in the G-Hab for the CSI-01 investigation.
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      imageNASA Image: ISS014E20211- Astronaut Sunita L. Williams, Expeditions 14 and 15 Flight Engineer, seen here with two G-Habs as part of the CSI-01 investigation. The G-Habs are placed in the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) where their germination will be studied by middle school students.
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      Information Provided and Updated by the ISS Program Scientist's Office
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