The second ever commercial space mission to the International Space Station ISS is underway: Axiom Mission 2. On Sunday, May 2, the SpaceX rocket Dagon 2 went up to the space station from the Kennedy space center in Florida.
On the mission, which is planned to last a total of nine days, the astronauts will carry out a number of different research projects. Doctor Arun Sharma at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California is in charge of an experiment that focuses on biomedicine. He tells SVT that the assignment so far is going exactly as he had hoped.
– We have received images from the space station, and see that the cells we sent up are healthy.
Medicine of the future
The goal of the experiment that Arun Sharma and his research team are now doing in space is to see if stem cells can grow and divide better in space than on Earth.
– If we can create more stem cells with higher quality in this way, it could have great potential for improving organ transplants, to name just one example.
The Axiom 2 experiment is not the only one the research team has planned. As early as next year, the group will carry out more studies in space.
– The ultimate dream is that we find a biological process, cell type or material that can only be created in space. If we could bring it to Earth, who knows what potential it might have?
During Axiom 2, the group also researches cancer. Is the answer to the riddle of cancer in space? See the ESA astronaut’s theory in the clip.