SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was launched on Wednesday on a way to bring worms, liquid fuel and other new experiments to the International Space Station.

 

太空探索技术公司（SpaceX）的龙飞船在周三发射，向国际空间站运输蠕虫、液体燃料以及其它新设备。
 

 

The spacecraft, riding on a Falcon¹ 9 rocket, lifted off at 1:16 p.m. EST at the Launch Complex 40 at Cape² Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. It is the sixth resupply mission to the space station this year.

 

About 10 minutes after the launch, the spacecraft reached its preliminary orbit, then deployed³ its solar arrays, starting multiple thruster firings to reach the space station.

 

The spacecraft, which flew to the space station in February of 2017, is carrying 36,000 roundworms in pouches⁴ to the orbiting lab and and if goes well, about two or three million ones will come back to earth. It is part of a study that may offer a better understanding of why muscles deteriorate⁵ in microgravity.

 

"They're a great model for using to study human changes, even though they're just a 1-mm-long worm," said Timothy Etheridge, the principal investigator⁶ of the mission. "Their muscles are both structurally⁷ and functionally⁸ extremely similar to people, so even more so when we're talking about understanding muscle changes, worms are a very good model."

 

The findings can improve methods to help astronauts maintain their strength during future space travel and also lead to new treatments for the elderly who chronically⁹ suffer from muscle loss.

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