NASA’s SpaceX CRS-34 Dragon Returns Packed with Space Station Science

Scientists await a big splash in the Pacific Ocean as one of the most research-packed Dragon spacecraft to date returns, completing the 34th SpaceX commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA. Biological and materials samples, along with tested hardware, are heading back to research teams on Earth for further analysis, advancing NASA’s work to prepare humans for exploration beyond low Earth orbit and to deliver benefits back home. Some samples returning are for NASA’s Hematopoietic Stem Cell Expansion in Space: Pathfinder Investigation ( InSPA-StemCellEX-H2 ), which seeks to use the microgravity environment to scale up the production of stems cells. On Earth, lab-produced blood stem cells lose their ability to form different cell types, like red and white blood cells that are critical to treating patients with certain blood diseases and cancers. In microgravity, researchers believe this ability will be better preserved while also growing these stem cells in greater numbers. The returning samples will undergo further analysis to determine if space-based efforts produce larger quantities of enhanced stem cells suitable for clinical use. The team behind NASA’s Streptococcus pneumoniae (Spn) Infection of Cardiac Tissue ( MVP Cell-09 ) experiment is awaiting the return of stem cell-derived heart tissues that were intentionally infected with a pneumonia-causing bacterium as part of ongoing microgravity research. …