Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - Rocksat-C 2018 Payload
Mentor 1
David Kaplan
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
27-4-2018 1:00 PM
Description
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is a group of students from UW Milwaukee and UW Sheboygan who are working together to design and build a payload that will be flown to space on a NASA sounding rocket as part of the RockSat-C 2018 program. The payload will test the effects of space flight on DNA. On the payload, there will be tubes of plasmids, along with sensors to record the radiation, temperature, and acceleration. Some of the samples will be shielded, reducing radiation exposure by about 20%. Multiple geiger counters, some shielded, are being used to differentiate between Gamma and Beta radiation. Post-flight, the plasmids will be mixed with bacteria to evaluate the efficiency of gene transmission after space flight compared to control samples. Last summer, a similar payload was built to test the same effects on plasmid DNA. Unexpectedly, it was found that the gene transfer efficiency improved for the samples exposed to space flight conditions. This is the opposite of what was predicted, so this 2018 project will be used to further study why this occurs.
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - Rocksat-C 2018 Payload
Union Wisconsin Room
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is a group of students from UW Milwaukee and UW Sheboygan who are working together to design and build a payload that will be flown to space on a NASA sounding rocket as part of the RockSat-C 2018 program. The payload will test the effects of space flight on DNA. On the payload, there will be tubes of plasmids, along with sensors to record the radiation, temperature, and acceleration. Some of the samples will be shielded, reducing radiation exposure by about 20%. Multiple geiger counters, some shielded, are being used to differentiate between Gamma and Beta radiation. Post-flight, the plasmids will be mixed with bacteria to evaluate the efficiency of gene transmission after space flight compared to control samples. Last summer, a similar payload was built to test the same effects on plasmid DNA. Unexpectedly, it was found that the gene transfer efficiency improved for the samples exposed to space flight conditions. This is the opposite of what was predicted, so this 2018 project will be used to further study why this occurs.
