SpaceX Dragon set to bring more key science back to Earth

Washington, Jan 9 : An upgraded SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft is set to transport significantly more science back to Earth next week than possible in previous Dragon capsules, and is the first space station cargo capsule to splash down off the coast of Florida.
In addition, key science experiments returns from the space station through NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle, NASA said in a statement late on Friday.
The space experiments include ‘Cardinal Heart’, which studies how changes in gravity affect cardiovascular cells at the cellular and tissue level using 3D engineered heart tissues, a type of tissue chip.
On January 11, the SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft carrying out the company’s 21st commercial resupply services (CRS-21) mission for NASA will undock from the International Space Station (ISS), heading for splashdown off the coast of Florida about 12 hours later.
“Sending science up to space and then receiving it again on the runway was definitely something in the shuttle days that we really took pride in, and being able to rejoin that process is great,” said Kennedy Space Center utilisation project manager, Jennifer Wahlberg.
Another experiment is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency study, ‘Space Organogenesis’, which demonstrates the growth of 3D organ buds from human stem cells in order to analyze changes in gene expression.