Editor’s Note: Space has become an increasingly attractive destination for research, manufacturing and more, as its microgravity environment offers a unique platform for scientific exploration. Microgravity causes changes in biological systems and alters fundamental physical phenomena, enabling novel experiments. The potential of R&D in space was explored at the third annual 2017 R&D 100 Conference, held Nov. 16 and 17 at the Walt Disney World Swan Resort in Orlando, Florida as part of the panel “Partnering in Space: A Frontier for Innovation.” Panelists included: Michael Roberts, PhD, Deputy Chief Scientist of the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS); Siobhan Malany, PhD, Director of Translational Biology, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute; Justin Kugler, Business Development Engineer for Advanced Projects at Made In Space; and Erika Wagner, PhD, Business Development Manager for Blue Origin. The panel was moderated by Bernie McShea, Vice President, Business Development, Space Florida.
The following is the fourth in a four-part series from R&D Magazine that highlights some of the exciting space-based R&D and innovation that was discussed during the panel. See Part one, Part two, and Part three here.
All four parts appeared as a full story in the February 2018 issue of R&D Magazine.
An illustration of New Glenn, an upcoming, reuseable Blue Origin spacecraft expected to launch in 2020. Photo Credit: Blue Origin
Despite the many scientific opportunities in space, access doesn’t always come easy, or cheap.
Blue Origin is one company that is working to bring the cost of space flight down. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos set up the privately funded aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight services company in 2000, with the goal of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space. To do that, the company is developing reusable launch systems to lower the cost of space access.
Blue Origin’s New Shepard is the world’s first fully reusable vertical takeoff, vertical landing vehicle to travel to space.
The New Shepard space platform—which had its first full-scale flight in 2015—consists of a pressurized capsule atop a booster. The combined vehicles launch vertically, accelerating for approximately two and a half minutes, before the engine cuts off. The capsule then separates from the booster to coast quietly into space. After a few minutes of free fall, the booster performs an autonomously controlled rocket-powered vertical landing, while the capsule lands softly under parachutes, both ready to be used again. It is powered by one BE-3 engine, producing up to 110,000 pounds of thrust. Blue Origin’s rocket engines are designed for high performance, low recurring cost, reusability, and reliable and precise operations.
The New Shepard system offers a more affordable space platform for research, said Erica Wagner, PhD, Business Development Manager for Blue Origin.
“Commercial space access adds a whole new tool to the R&D toolbox, allowing any researcher to make gravity a new variable in their research pipeline,” said Wagner. “Spaceflight research enables researchers to manipulate basic processes of buoyancy, sedimentation, convection, and gene expression.”
The vehicle can accommodate experiments up to hundreds of pounds and features a “plug-and-play” approach for easier development. Payloads have access to three minutes of a high-quality microgravity environment.
The New Shepard system provides researchers with a cleaner microgravity environment, rapid access to space and more flexible re-flight opportunities, as the reuse system is more affordable than other alternatives, said Wagner.
Eventually, Blue Origin plans to provide private researchers the opportunity to accompany their own experiments into space. It is designed to carry up to six astronauts, or their payload equivalent.
In December 2017, New Shepard launched its seventh mission, the inaugural flight for Crew Capsule 2.0, the latest version of the vehicle it is creating to bring astronauts into space for its first passenger flights. On that same mission, the company also achieved an exciting milestone for suborbital research in space, sending 12 commercial, research and education payloads under full FAA license for the first time.
The New Shepard Mission 7 (M7) flight included a wide range of payloads, ranging from basic and applied microgravity sciences to Earth and space science. The payloads were on board during the 11-minute flight to space and back, with each spending three minutes in a high-quality microgravity environment, at an apogee around 100 kilometers.
The payloads on this mission included the Cell Research Experiment in Microgravity (CRExIM), a partnership between students and faculty at Embry-Riddle University-Daytona, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the Medical University of South Carolina. The experiment studied how microgravity affects the cellular processes of T-cells, which develop from stem cells in the bone marrow and are key to immune system function.
Orbital Medicine and Purdue University, with funding from NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, sent the Evolved Medical Microgravity Suction Device on the M7 flight. The device could assist in the treatment of a collapsed lung where air and blood enter the pleural cavity and is able to collect blood in microgravity and still allow for the suction to continuously inflate the lung and allow it to heal.
Other examples of payloads included on the M7 flight are the JANUS Research Platform, from Johns Hopkins University-Applied Physics Laboratory, a device which provides researchers with a look at suborbital flight conditions, and the Zero-Gravity Glow Experiment (ZGGE) a project run by Purdue University with help from students at Cumberland Elementary School. The ZGGE payload operates by mixing the appropriate chemicals during the weightless coast period of the vehicle’s mission and observing the response with a miniature video camera.
Following the success of New Shepard, Blue Origin is in the process of building and launching New Glenn, which features more than twice the payload volume of any 5-meter class commercial launch system. The spacecraft will offer unrivaled lift to low earth and geostationary orbits with seven BE-4 engines powering a reusable first stage. It is expected to launch in 2020.
