Israel, in cooperation with the Italian Space Agency, early on Thursday morning launched the “DIDO III” nano-satellite which includes a tiny laboratory in which medical experiments will be performed.
The project is a collaboration between the Israeli Space Agency in the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Italian Space Agency. The laboratory, developed by SpacePharma, includes four experiments in the fields of medicine, biology and chemistry that are meant to provide new and groundbreaking information on diseases and their prevention.
ישראל שגרה לפנות בוקר את הלווין DIDO III. על הלווין מעבדה זעירה שבה יערכו ארבעה ניסויים מדעיים-רפואיים בחלל @noabarak
(צילום: משרד המדע והטכנולוגיה וחברת ספייס פארמה) pic.twitter.com/G30TGRXm3n— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) September 3, 2020
The miniature laboratory, whose temperature can be controlled in space, is operated autonomously and allows each scientist to conduct an experiment independently and remotely.
Among the experiments that will be performed:
- Prevention of infections,
- Drug development,
- Prevention of antibiotic resistance and delay of aging procedures.
The launch was supposed to take place several months ago but was postponed several times due to weather conditions.
Source: Arutz Sheva
Notes:
The DIDO satellites are 3U CubeSat satellites for micro-gravity rersearch designed by the Israeli / Swiss company SpacePharma.
The satellites contain the mGnify miniaturized end-to-end lab, that can be remote controlled from anywhere. The mGnify unit can perform experiments on bacterial growth, antibiotics resistance, self-assembly, enzymatic reactions, polymerization, nanoparticle synthesis, particle aggregation dynamics, emulsion stability and crystallization.
Upgrades have been made to the DIDO-3 platform to be able to support dedicating more power to the payload, allowing it to maintain higher temperatures than the previous mission, DIDO-2.
A third mission, DIDO 3, was ordered in 2018. It is to fly in 2020 on a multi satellite launch on a Vega rocket.