Today morning SpaceX launched a rocket containing ants, Avocados and robots into space. The delivery to the space station marks SpaceX’s 23rd delivery for NASA in under a decade.
This delivery was done by a recycled falcon rocket carrying a dragon capsule. The dragon capsule is one of SpaceX’s large capacity ones carrying 2500kg of supplies. This payload includes fresh food like avocados and ice cream for the astronauts. Ants and shrimp are also being sent up as experiments there.
An Image of the ISS
The ISS (International Space Station) is a research facility where astronauts carry out a wide gamut of experiments ranging from maintaining life support systems to learning how to grow food in space. The ants being sent up there will be used to study tunneling behavior in space and how weightlessness affects insects.
Even the girl scouts sent their share of tomatoes to space, which are going to be used in experiments regarding the growth of plants in weightlessness. The shrimp will be used in similar studies: how to grow fresh protein for astronauts in space.
Also aboard the capsule is a robotic arm from Japan that astronauts will attempt to use for repairs and other tasks. Gitai, the company making the arm, has stated that future models of this arm might move independently into space to perform remote satellite repairs and even mine resources from the moon’s surface.
The Dragon capsule is set to dock at the space station on Monday, August 30.