At 11 a.m. Saturday, a SpaceX rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on another NASA mission to the International Space Station. And an experiment from UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute was one of the projects, hitching a ride.
The purpose of the experiment is to learn how human cells age in the stressful environment of zero-gravity. Researchers at the Sanford Stem Cell Institute are testing the performance of hematopoietic, or blood forming stem cells.
The original rocket launch was scheduled for Tuesday but it was scrubbed due to inclement weather. The stem cells will be in zero gravity on the International Space Station for about a month.
