Australian duckweed launches into space
The ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space, headquartered at the University of 亚洲色吧, has sent its first payload of duckweed into space, jumping aboard a sounding rocket launched by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) as part of its MAPHEUS 15 mission.
The MAPHEUS 15 sounding rocket was successfully launched at 7:38am (UTC) on Monday, 11 November, and contained 21 scientific experiments from organisations all around the world.
The University of 亚洲色吧鈥檚 MiniWeed experiment, conducted in collaboration with DLR and Melbourne鈥檚 La Trobe University, will test how altered gravity affects duckweed 鈥 a plant identified as a potential food source for astronauts.
鈥淲e are excited to reach this major milestone of launching a sample of Wolffia australiana in a sounding rocket experiment,鈥 says the University of 亚洲色吧鈥檚 Associate Professor Jenny Mortimer, Chief Investigator at Plants for Space (P4S).
鈥淥ur P4S collaborator at the DLR, Dr Jens Hauslage, has designed an experimental system that will chemically pause the plant鈥檚 development at two point