Radish plants are pictured growing inside the Columbus laboratory module's Plant Habitat-02. NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins harvested leaves from the plants for the space botany experiment that is exploring the capability for food production in microgravity.
What biology research would you conduct on the International Space Station? As the world celebrates 20 years of astronauts living and working on the International Space Station, ESA is preparing for another decade of European research in humankind's weightless laboratory.
Eight saplings grown from pips taken from Isaac Newton's apple tree and flown in space by ESA astronaut Tim Peake are being planted across the UK and Europe.
A team of researchers led by Professor Ikawa Masahito from the Research Institute for Microbial Diseases of Osaka University, in a joint research project with the University of Tsukuba and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, raised 12 male mice in the Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo" on the International Space Station for 35 days.
NASA has awarded 15 grants for new space biology research designed to help the agency achieve its goals under the Artemis lunar exploration program.
In space, the human body loses muscle mass. Although living in microgravity requires no heavy lifting, this loss of muscle reduces physical performance.
NASA and the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems, Moscow, are collaborating on a space biology mission aboard an unmanned Russian biosatellite to understand better the mechanisms of how life adapts to microgravity and then readapts to gravity on Earth. NASA will participate in the post-flight analysis of rodents flown for 30 days on the biosatellite, Bion-M1, which launched April 19 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.