Lab-grown beating heart tissue and peppercorn-sized human "mini brains" developed by Mount Sinai scientists in New York City are headed to the International Space Station, where researchers will study how the space environment changes them. The samples launched aboard SpaceX's CRS-35 cargo mission at 6:33 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 13, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Cargo Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the station at about 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, October 15.
The question behind the experiments is whether spaceflight speeds up aging-like changes in human heart and brain tissue. If it does, researchers hope the space station could help them study, in months, changes linked to conditions that take decades to develop on Earth, including heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease.
