Adelaide's ReseachSat to take bacteria/cells into suborbital space for medical research under microgravity
The ResearchSat satellite payloads were fitted out with petri dish-like microfluidic chips, and technology to monitor and control temperature, radiation and microgravity.
Adelaide-based venture ResearchSat in 2020 was offering to take disease bacteria and other living cells into suborbital space so experiments on them could be made in the microgravity environment.
Exploring the changes to the living cells were expected to provide new insights that might advance life-science technologies and therapeutics.
ResearchSat was supported by the South Australian space industry centre, the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, the innovation and collaboration centre and Deloitte. ResearchSat provided the satellites for researchers and organisations to run their experiments in space. Its services included helping to design experiments, taking care of all launch logistics and retrieving data from the satellite.
Space provided a unique environment that challenged the fluid dynamics affecting the living cell dynamics. In microgravity, things behaved differently and unexpectedly. Bondings between cells differ or reshape in a different way, in three dimensions, giving new characteristics and mutations that could lead to developing new medicines.
ResearchSat’s payloads for cube satellites were the size of a hamburger and fitted out with petri dish-like microfluidic chips, and technology to monitor and control temperature, radiation and microgravity.
ResearchSat in 2020 was working a mission to host experiments with the University of Adelaide and Tessera Therapeutics, after about two years development. This launch would include samples including pneumonia and throat infection-based bacterium, mushroom-like fungi, and brain tissue with a proprietary compound to explore the effects of microgravity.
ResearchSat founder and CEO RaviTeja Duggineni said the team was looking for potential changes or damage to the brain tissue under the microgravity often experienced by air force pilots and astronauts. The fungi would be sent on behalf of research by Adelaide University into growing food in space and to increase agriculture yield. Researchers would observe survival and nutrients in the fibres of the fungi to understand fungal growth in space.
The entire mission from launch to landing would be one hour, with about 15 minutes in suborbital space.