Botany, stem cell work and cargo wrap up week aboard ISS

Space agriculture, stem cells and cargo operations wrapped up the week aboard the International Space Station. Growing plants aboard a spacecraft is key to sustaining crews on long missions, so flight engineer Chris Williams configured a microscope to observe plant cell division in microgravity.

Insights could improve methods for growing food in space and on lunar or planetary surfaces. Flight engineer Jessica Meir harvested blood stem cells inside the Kibo laboratory module’s Life Science Glovebox (LSG) that have been growing aboard the station since Dragon arrived on May 17.

She examined the cells’ density and viability with the KERMIT fluorescent microscope as researchers explore space-designed cell therapies for conditions such as blood cancers and immune diseases. Dragon is due to depart the station at 12:05 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, June 16, to return the stem cell samples along with several tons of experiments and lab hardware; live coverage of undocking begins at 11:45 a.m.

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