NASA MEDIA TELECON ON SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS ON SpX-24 CARGO MISSION, Dec 14, 2021, virtual, 1:00 pm ET

NASA will hold a media telecon on December 14, 2021 at 1:00 pm ET to discuss the science experiments that will be delivered to the International Space Station on the 24th SpaceX Cargo Dragon mission, which is scheduled for launch on December 21, 2021.

Audio of the teleon will stream on NASA Live.

Participants are:

• Dr. Robert Dempsey, acting deputy chief scientist for the International Space Station Program. Dempsey will provide an overview of space station research and how it can benefit humanity.
• Dr. Michael Becker, project manager at the German Aerospace Agency and principal investigator for the Bioprint FirstAid investigation. This technology demonstration tests a portable, handheld bioprinter that uses a patient’s own skin cells to create a tissue-forming patch that can cover a wound and accelerate the healing process.
• Alicia Carey, lead program manager for the Turbine Superalloy Casting Module (Turbine SCM). Turbine SCM tests a commercial manufacturing device that processes heat resistant alloy parts in microgravity.
• Dr. Imara Perera, research professor at North Carolina State University, and principal investigator, and Dave Reed, operations director for the MVP Plant-01 investigation. This study profiles and monitors the development of the shoots and roots of plants in microgravity to help scientists understand the mechanisms by which plants sense and adapt to changes in their environment.
• Niko Hansen, representative of the Bacteria Resistant Polymers in Microgravity investigation, one of two Student Payload Opportunity with Citizen Science (SPOCS) launching on this mission.
• Theo Nelson, representative for the Characterizing Antibiotic Resistance in Microgravity Environments (CARMEn) investigation, the second SPOCS investigation.
• Dr. Brian Crucian, principal investigator for Host Pathogen, which assesses space-induced changes in immune status by culturing cells collected from crew members before, during, and after spaceflight with both bacteria grown under simulated spaceflight conditions and unaltered bacteria.
• Paul Reichert principal investigator for CASIS PCG 20, which continues work on crystallizing a monoclonal antibody developed by Merck Research Labs that is the active ingredient in a drug that targets multiple cancers.
• Dr. Mark Sivik, a Senior Director and Research Fellow at Procter & Gamble (P&G) and co-investigator of the P&G Telescience Investigation of Detergent Experiments PGTIDE investigation. PGTIDE will study the performance of its stain removal ingredients and the formulation’s stability in microgravity.