Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli,
also known by his Twitter username "@Astro_Paolo", on Friday
will work on the IN SITU bioanalysis experiment aboard the
International Space Station (ISS), where he arrived on July 28
and is completing various experiments as part of the Italian
Space Agency's (ASI) VITA mission.
In the experiment, a saliva sample will be analysed for the
first time ever aboard the ISS, using a special device developed
by the University of Bologna's chemistry department.
On Thursday Nespoli transferred work from other biology
experiments in the mission - CORM, MyoGravity, NANOROS, and
SERISM - to containers specifically designed to maintain cells
at their ideal survival temperatures in the incubator Kubik,
provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).
In the coming days Nespoli will remove the containers one by
one and insert them into a freezer before sending them back to
the Earth to allow Italian researchers to complete the
experiments.
In the two weeks leading up to the launch of the experiments,
a group of about 20 Italian researchers prepared the material in
laboratories at a base that NASA made available to ASI.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA