A new experiment, released this Monday (20), will take fragments of human muscle the size of a grain of rice grown in a laboratory into space. The idea is to identify changes in the tissue aging process without the influence of the Earth’s atmospheric conditions.
The study, developed by scientists at the University of Liverpool and funded by the UK Space Agency, was called MicroAge and could help find out why muscles weaken as people age, as well as solutions to combat it.
“The research of our astronaut scientists like Tim Peake on muscle wasting in space microgravity is helping to identify possible cures for musculoskeletal disorders,” UK Science Minister George Freeman told a story published on the agency’s website .
To withstand the conditions of space, the artificial muscle cells will be placed on small supports. The cells will receive electric shocks to stimulate them and perform contractions. Scientists hope to monitor any changes in behavior.
The MicroAge is expected to be launched into space by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday (21), from the Kennedy Space Center station in Florida.
The mission will return to Earth in January 2022, when scientists hope they already have initial data to analyze.
The UK Space Agency has MicroAge as its second funded mission, which cost £1.2 million.
The first agency-funded study was released in June 2021, with scientists from Nottingham and Exeter University sending worms to live aboard the space station. The idea is also to understand the muscle decline induced by space flight.
A third study is underway at the University of Strathclyde with support from the British multinational QinetiQ and will study how complex fluids behave in microgravity.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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