For the first time Thursday, a NASA-funded researcher flew with their experiment on a commercial suborbital rocket.
University of Florida scientist Rob Ferl conducted his experiment in space as part of the Blue Origin New Shepard mission.
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The technology is one of two NASA-supported experiments, also known as payloads, funded by the agency’s Flight Opportunities program that will launch on a flight test Thursday.
The launch went off as scheduled shortly after 9 a.m. ET and was followed by a smooth 11-minute journey to space and back.
Press play below to watch a replay of the launch webcast
New Shepard lifted climbed to an altitude of 345,958 feet, well above the Karman Line, the internationally recognized boundary of space.
Ferl and his five fellow crew members experienced several minutes of weightlessness before their capsule returned to Earth, touching down softly in a plume of dust under three orange and blue parachutes.
Ferl raised his arms in celebration as he exited the capsule, donned a bright orange UF cap and went to greet his waiting family.
“It couldn’t have been a better experience,” Ferl said a few minutes later. “There is room for scientists of all sizes, shapes and ages to do this. There is a lot of opportunity in a ride like that.”
Ferl’s experiment seeks to understand how changes in gravity during spaceflight affect plant biology. Ferl activated small, self-contained tubes pre-loaded with plants and preservatives to biochemically freeze the samples at various stages of gravity.
During the flight, co-principal investigator Anna-Lisa Paul conducted four identical experiments as a control.
Ferl, a distinguished professor in UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, joined Paul after the flight in preparing the experimental tubes he had activated during the flight for their trip back to an on-site lab and, ultimately, to Gainesville for analysis.
“What a glorious day for the University of Florida, Rob, Anna-Lisa, and their team,” said Interim UF President Kent Fuchs. “UF is tremendously proud to pioneer a new era of space exploration where academics conduct their own research in space. Our partnership with Blue Origin and NASA is an important first for university scientists around the world. Discoveries lie ahead.”
Ferl, who is also director of UF’s Astraeus Space Institute, and Paul have sent dozens of experiments to space over the last 20 years in an effort to understand how living organisms respond, at the molecular level, to launch, microgravity and return to Earth. Typically, those experiments have involved plants loaded into complex, largely self-sufficient payload packages managed by NASA astronauts. Paul, director of UF’s Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, said these experiments have largely been done “in space” but not “on the way to space.”
“Academic researchers have had a wonderful collaborative relationship with NASA astronauts over the years,” Ferl said. “Now, the growth of the commercial space industry provides new opportunities for us scientists to conduct our own very focused, real-time experiments.”
Ferl and Paul were the first scientists to grow plants in moon soil. Their research program seeks to understand how plants grow under microgravity in order to one day support long-term space missions to the moon or Mars, where plants will be essential for food and oxygen, and where they can provide astronauts with a little slice of home.
The other Flight Opportunities supported payload was from HeetShield, a small business in Flagstaff, Arizona. Two new thermal protection system materials were mounted to the outside of New Shepard’s propulsion module to assess their thermal performance in a relevant environment, since conditions will be similar to planetary entry. After the flight, HeetShield will analyze the structure of the materials to determine how they were affected by the flight.