Mission summary, social media and photos
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The Cerebral Ageing mission is a collaboration between SupBiotech, Institut Pasteur, CNES and Bioserve Space Technologies. We are sending cerebral organoids to the International Space Station in order to better understand how the human brain ages in extreme conditions.
Launch date : Nov 11th, 8:28am
[Kennedy Space Center, Florida Time]
? Press Release
Institut Pasteur – CNES
On November 9th, at 8:28pm Florida time, the Commercial Resuppy Service Mission SpX-29 left earth with our organoids [1].
Our organoids were encased in the capsule (Dragon 2) on top of ~180 tons of rocket fuel to propel the Falcon 9 launcher.
The launch was emotional for the whole team, but especially for Lucie Madrange (CellTechs, SupBiotech/CEA joint lab) and Tara Fournier (Miria Ricchetti lab, Institut Pasteur) who have worked so hard to get to this point.
Nearly 33 hours after the launch, the Dragon capsule docked autonomously to the International Space station [2] : the unpacking of the organoids can begin by the astronauts.
Two days later, the team is back to France at their respective labs : SupBiotech/CEA and Institut Pasteur. The control organoids are safely maintained in parallel to those kept on the ISS.
Thanks a lot to all the partners of the #CerebralAgeing Project :
CNES – European Space Agency – ESA – SupBiotech, l’école des ingénieurs en biotechnologies (CellTechs joint lab with CEA)- Institut Pasteur – BioServe Space Technologies
[1] Video of Launch Link
[2] NasaTV video of the docking of the SpX29 dragon : Link
Credits : LaunchPhotography/Ben Cooper’s photos of Spx29 : Link
Social media updates
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Photos
The Cerebral Ageing team, composed of members of the CellTechs (SupBiotech/CEA) laboratory, the Pasteur Institute, the CNES and Bioserve Space Technologies were present two weeks before the Spx-29 launch to prepare the organoids for the flight.
Some memories from this trip :