Christina Cheung is one of the support scientists for NASA’s Fruit Fly Lab and the outreach lead for the Space Biosciences Division at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. Christina is blogging from Ames and from Kennedy Space Center in Florida about her experiences during the pre-flight, flight, and post-flight periods of the FFL-02 experiment. It is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station in June 2017 aboard SpaceX’s eleventh commercial resupply services mission.
Post 0 – Post 1 – Post 2 – Post 3 – Post 4
Post 5 – Post 6 – Post 7 – Post 8 – Post 9
Post 10 – Post 11 – Post 12 – Post 13 – Post 14
Post 15 – Post 16 – Post 17 – Post 18 – Post 19
Post 20 – Post 21 – Post 22 – Post 23
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Post 23 – October 26, 2017: Delivery of Ground Controls & Reflections on a Mission Complete
On October 8, our Asynchronous Ground Controls (AGC) were completed. We carried out the experiment as closely as possible to how the mission was completed back in June. Just like I had to retrieve the samples and escort them to the principal investigator’s team then, we also had to do the same for the AGC samples. However, this time, I wasn’t the one going to escort the samples to the PI team. Instead, two members of the logistics team took on the important task of safely driving the samples down to the PI’s lab at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California.
Members of the Fruit Fly Lab team came in early Sunday morning to take the samples out of the incubators that had simulated the environment that our space samples were in. They were securely strapped to the floor of the van, just like when we had retrieved the space samples. By 9 a.m., the samples were well on their way on their more than 8-hour journey to La Jolla. Once the team members dropped off the samples at the PI team’s lab, they flew back home the next day. With that, the NASA Ames team had done everything that we could to ensure a successful mission, and all we could do was wait to hear from the PI team that all the samples were ok.
Finally, after about a week, we received news that the samples were sufficient, and now, the FFL-02 mission is officially complete for the NASA Ames payload development team. Since then, I’ve had sporadic chances to take a step back to reflect on this entire experience, and I’ve realized that I’m torn in opposite directions. On the one hand, I am very relieved that it’s over, because as I continued to work on the FFL-02 project after we came back from our preflight and launch activities, I also had to start another mission and other projects. Since then, there has been a great deal of juggling of time and resources, and now that it’s over, my time has freed up more, so that I can focus on our next priorities. Yet, I will be the first to admit that I am also having a hard time letting go and finally putting an end to this mission.
Although I started my work as a support scientist for this mission well after FFL-02 had already begun, since then, it has been a significant part of my time at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Perhaps I am reluctant to end this mission, because I am reminded that when I started at Ames, I assumed that I would never get to take part in another mission; and yet, I was very fortunate to be given this opportunity to do so. Or perhaps, it’s because I have come to see the members of this mission as a team that I truly can count on.
Throughout this experience, I have learned that, for a successful mission, it is essential to have a team of dedicated individuals; a team with members that do not hesitate to support one another, and willingly put in the extra effort to make all the parts work each step of the way. Without a doubt, we all put our 110 percent in everything we could, and did our best to contribute to the team effort. However, I also learned the importance of trusting fellow team members and asking for help when it was needed, knowing that they were there for support. Through every seemingly small victory and most especially our challenges, our team took each one as they came, worked together, and followed through. This is what I experienced day in and day out that allows me to honestly say that this mission was truly a one of a kind experience. It was equally challenging and memorable in many ways, and I hope to use all of what I have learned for future missions.
A special thank you to the entire Fruit Fly Lab team, both past and present members who took part in the FFL-02 mission. I feel honored that I was able to take part and capture just a portion of the effort it took to finish this mission. Through this blog, I hope I was able to provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse to everyone of what it truly takes to finish a successful mission. And for us Fruit Fly Lab team members, I hope I have created something that we can all look back on with cherished memories. Thank you for another experience of a lifetime.
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Blog Post 22 – September 7, 2017: Asynchronous Ground Control
It has now been just over two months since we recovered and delivered the space samples to the principal investigator’s team at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California. For the past week, the NASA Ames team has been preparing for the Asynchronous Ground Control (AGC) to be completed at Ames. The AGC is an exact repeat, or as much as possible, of what was done, from start to finish, during our preflight, flight, and post-flight activities. It is important to have a ground control to obtain a baseline to make sure that we know the results of the experiment are caused by microgravity and not any other variable.
In preparation for AGC, I have been maintaining our fly stocks that were used for preflight when we were at Kennedy Space Center. Thankfully, we did not have to maintain the large number of bottles that we had prepared for our first shipment to Kennedy Space Center, because this time we were aiming for a set date for our simulated launch. Leading up to the actual launch to the International Space Station, that date could have changed for a variety of reasons (Indeed, it did!), and we had to be prepared to start over when that happened. Therefore, I have been taking care of a much smaller batch of flies in preparation for AGC.
We also have our programmable incubators in the lab that are able to simulate different environmental settings like temperature, carbon dioxide levels, and relative humidity levels. We took environmental data from the Dragon capsule and various locations inside the space station to compile programs to simulate the environment that the flies experienced.
In the meantime, since we had a target date of when we wanted to simulate the recovery and delivery of the samples, we worked backwards to create a schedule that replicated exactly what we did, down to the exact minutes. Once we had all the activities planned out to mimic our experience at Kennedy Space Center, it was time to execute! (For a reminder of all the steps we took preparing for launch, check out earlier posts about the process, linked in the paragraphs below.)
Just like we had in our flight preparations, all the food used for the AGC was made by the Principal Investigator team right before we were about to start. They shipped us the food in the number of fly vials required and, soon after, AGC was underway. Unfortunately, the AGC had to start right before the long Labor Day weekend. However, for our whole team, sacrificing our three-day weekend to come into work every day was just part of the job and I didn’t mind at all.
Over the next seven consecutive days, we cleared bottles, sorted and collected flies, and set up both egg lay samples and adult samples to mimic our preflight preparations, to the best of our ability. On the evening of the last day, the sample vials were placed inside the Vented Fly Box, packed into a cargo transfer bag, and were “handed over”. This time, though, instead of actually handing the flies over to be packed on a rocket, we placed the samples into our pre-programmed incubators to simulate the environments that our samples would be experiencing.
With that, we have successfully completed the preflight portion of the AGC. It seems a lot simpler when we’re only preparing for one (simulated) launch attempt that doesn’t move. There isn’t the familiar feeling of exhausting and seemingly endless days of collection and clearing like we experienced at Kennedy Space Center. However, we still performed each part of preflight with the same diligence and anticipation as we did for flight. And, for now, we wait, as if the experiment were in space for the duration of the mission.
Blog Post 21 – July 4, 2017: Sample Recovery
I woke up early in the morning, not so much from being well rested, but rather in anticipation of an eventful day. I had breakfast at the hotel with some fellow NASA Ames personnel and waited to go to the handover location close by. It was quite busy at our hotel, and it made me realize that everyone else was on holiday, getting ready to relax before the Independence Day celebrations later in the night. Our team won’t be taking the holiday this year, but in my couple hours to spare, I tried to relax and go over the procedure that I needed to perform. I’ve gone over it more than a dozen times, but with this being my first time doing sample recovery more or less by myself, I was definitely feeling excited and quite nervous all at the same time.
At last, it was time to head to the handover location in a private portion of the Long Beach Airport to retrieve our flies. By the time we got there, several other NASA teams that had sent different experiments to the space station were already waiting to pick up their own samples. As we waited our turn, someone in the room made a pretty remarkable comment, saying that, although it’s never fun having to work on a holiday, at the very least we were doing one of the most patriotic things we could possibly do by performing work for the U.S. space program and furthering our nation’s contributions to science. Not a sentiment that I had ever thought about beforehand, but it definitely made me smile and relax a little.
Members of the cargo mission contract (CMC) team were in charge of distributing everyone’s spaceflight samples and, soon, the wait was over: “Fruit Fly Lab – Vented Fly Boxes!” the CMC lead called, and it was show time! He led us to a conference room where another team member handed me our cargo transfer bag (CTB) with all of our VFBs holding the flies. It was exhilarating, to say the least, getting to handle samples that had been in space.
Next, I followed each and every step of our detailed procedure, taking countless photos for our records. Once I got through it, I made my way to the van, which was pre-cooled to make sure our flies did not have to endure the scorching southern California heat. We strapped our CTB to the floor of the van and made our way back down to the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California, to meet the principal investigator’s team who was ready to receive the samples. Once the samples were handed over at their lab, they quickly got to work on the post-flight analysis. And, with that, my part of the job was over! What a relief, but there is still plenty more to do after I head back to NASA Ames!
While the samples are being processed by the PI team, the NASA Ames team will be getting ready to do an asynchronous ground control (AGC). This will involve performing another complete experiment, from start to finish, that never leaves the ground. We use flies that are descendants of the fly lines we used for our space samples, and simulate the conditions experienced by the flies on the space station, based on environmental data taken from sensors in our hardware. We perform this ground-based test to obtain a baseline to make sure that we know the results of this experiment are caused by microgravity and not any other variable.
Next time: The NASA Ames team begins the AGC.
Blog Post 20 – July 3, 2017: Travel to Long Beach
The wait is finally over and it’s now time for us to get our flies back from space! A few days ago on June 30, the NASA Ames team was back at our Multi-Mission Operations Center to be on standby while our samples were being packed up by the astronauts in the International Space Station. Our team was there from 10:30 p.m. to well past 1:00 a.m., so it was definitely a late night, but totally worth it to see it all happen in real time.
A couple days after, we got news that the Dragon capsule had detached from the International Space Station on the evening of June 2, 2017. The very next day, on June 3, I got ready to go down to southern California to retrieve the samples. I also had to hand-carry the Synchronous Health and Viability Assurance Control (SHVAC) down to the principal investigator (PI) team in La Jolla, before going to Long Beach for the handover of the samples from space.
My flight out of San Jose was at 4:00 p.m., which meant I still had a pretty full day of work before my travels. The team and I took care of some last-minute items, and then I headed toward the airport, along with the SHVAC, to catch my flight to San Diego. Thankfully, it was an easy, hour-long flight, despite the large number of small, excited children on board, who kept me very busy the entire flight. Once I landed in San Diego, I was joined by another logistics team member from NASA Ames for support during the sample recovery operations. We headed north and, along the way, stopped to hand over the SHVAC samples to the PI team and then continued our two-hour ride on towards Long Beach.
By the time we arrived in our hotel in Long Beach, it was nearly dark. It was relatively early in the evening, but, after doing quite a bit of travel the past couple days, I was ready to just relax and rest up for tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the big day when we get our samples and I’m definitely feeling the excitement and anticipation.
Blog Post 19 – June 6, 2017: FFL-02 Installation Operation
Once the SpaceX Dragon Capsule was captured by the International Space Station crew, our flies needed to be unloaded off the capsule and moved into station. To do this, there are carefully laid out procedures for everyone to follow. At 3:00 a.m. local time, only hours after arriving back to San Jose (I didn’t even get to go home yet!), our team gathered in the Multi-Mission Operations Center (MMOC) at NASA Ames. This is where we can be in contact with the people coordinating the operations of the astronauts.
We arrived a couple hours earlier than scheduled to ensure we would be ready any time that the astronauts were ready as well. While the astronauts started unloading the capsule, our team was also on standby to assist in anyway. We can provide guidance when an astronaut has a question or needs clarification, or if a protocol needs adjustment. We are on standby to answer those questions and to give the ok if a change is required.
In the MMOC, we were able to see a live video feed of the astronauts unloading our flies. It was so exciting to see our cargo transfer bag float by, knowing our flies were in there and finally in space!
Four of our Vented Fly Boxes (VFBs) were placed in the Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) incubator of the National Lab. The U.S. National Lab is one of many parts of the International Space Station. Like the name suggests, there are other international partners in the space station who all work together for the advancement of science. The other two VFBs remained in the cargo transfer bag and were stowed in another section of the station, called the Columbus Endcone. These two will serve as an experimental control for the environment in the ISS.
Once all six of the VFBs with our flies were placed in the correct configurations, all we had left to do was wait for the Dragon capsule to come home with all of its cargo, including our flies.
Next time: Traveling to Long Beach, CA to retrieve the FFL-02 experiment and escort the flies down to the PI Team.
Blog Post 18 – June 5, 2017: Travel Back to Ames Research Center
Today was an entire day of traveling from Kennedy back to Ames. I woke up at the crack of dawn and picked up the flies that belong to the group called the Synchronous Health and Viability Assurance Control (SHVAC), to hand carry them back to Ames. The SHVAC is an additional small-scale control for our FFL-02 experiment.
Later on, we will be conducting a full-scale ground control, where we run the same experiment that’s happening right now aboard the space station, but in our lab at Ames. This lets us compare the results we get from flies that flew in space to those that stayed on Earth. But the SHVAC is for our own peace of mind, to check on our flies’ health in real time as we eagerly await the experimental group’s return from space.
Before the launch, flies from the same batch that we sent into space were placed in identical Vented Fly Box (VFB) hardware, at the same time as the other VFBs were loaded with vials for spaceflight. So that the two VFBs for the SHVAC can be used as an additional control, we will expose them to the same type of environment as the current experiment in space, by placing them in our incubators that simulate the same conditions.
I strapped the custom-made cardboard box into my rental car passenger seat, and drove to the airport with the precious cargo to hand carry it all the way back to Ames. After a 45-minute drive to the Orlando airport, I returned the car and carried my luggage and SHVAC through the airport. It was quite a busy travel morning, but luckily, a couple team members had just arrived as well, just in case I ran into any problems. Once through the airport, we waited for our flight from Orlando to San Diego.
Once we arrived in San Diego, the longest leg of our travel was over. To be honest I was pretty exhausted and slept through most of the flight. I guess it was just evidence of how worn out I felt from the entire trip. I had my backpack up in the overhead bin, with the SHVAC under the seat in front of me to make sure it didn’t get jostled around. Before the plane even left the ground, I was dozing off, clearly ready for a good night’s rest. After the first leg, it was a short flight from San Diego back to San Jose. When we arrived in the Bay Area, it was such a relief to be back home. I headed over to Ames to put the SHVAC into our incubators in the labs, and left—only to have to return very early the next morning! No rest for the weary!
Blog Post 17 – June 4, 2017: Last Day at Kennedy Space Center
After a good night’s rest, I still felt exhausted coming back to Kennedy for work, but now with a weight off my shoulders from the successful launch of our FFL-02 experiment. We have a busy day ahead: a lot of packing and organizing before heading home. All the things that we brought for the labs have to be brought back, including the supplies and about 750 bottles of flies (about 75% of what we brought to begin with). We organized the items by boxes and the flies were tied onto a pallet. Everything will return to Ames on a specially equipped delivery truck, just like they came.
Once everything was as packed as can be for now, it was time to say goodbye to the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. This building and its labs have been our home for the majority of our days here at Kennedy preparing the FFL-02 experiment for launch aboard SpaceX’s eleventh resupply flight. We spent every day working in the labs and I am going to miss everything about it, even the long difficult days and nights with the flies. It was all very hard work; we were exhausted and anxious. However, I can honestly say that this whole experience was well worth every effort. The last time I left Kennedy, in early 2015, I didn’t think I would have the chance to come back. I told myself it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience; something few people can say they took part in. Now that this is the second time I am leaving Kennedy with the view of SSPF in my rearview mirror, I can honestly still say that this was also an experience of a lifetime—amazing in every way. If I had the chance, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Blog Post 16 – June 3, 2017: Launch Day, Take Two – We Have Liftoff!
Today’s the day for our second launch attempt at 5:07 p.m. EDT. Just like last time, everything is out of our hands and weather is the main concern. This morning we did our daily tasks of collecting adult and virgin flies. There was a welcome sense of familiarity in it, even though today’s launch is looming over us. Instead of just checking one website for weather, I’ve gotten into the habit of looking at two different ones. I know it doesn’t help, but being inside a windowless lab, not knowing what the weather is like outside, is far worse.
Once we were done with our daily tasks, we grabbed our lunch and waited for the launch. On this trip, we found a lesser known spot for viewing, where we would be able to see the launch and then see the landing of the reusable SpaceX rocket, as well. Waiting for this launch was one of the longest hours I have ever felt.
Surprisingly, at this point, the weather was cooperating and I felt a knot in my chest, as this launch attempt could actually happen. A few more minutes left on the clock and we got news that the weather was cooperating and the launch sequence was officially a go! Then, soon after, I saw a bright speck of light on the horizon float into the air. As the Falcon 9 rocket travelled through the sky, we heard the characteristic sonic booms as its speed surpassed the speed of sound – a physical illustration of just how magnificent and sophisticated this rocket is.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon Capsule carry a payload that I’ve been a part of; but every time I see it, I find myself in awe and wonder. Even more so this time, getting to see the first stage of the rocket land at the Cape Canaveral Airforce Base soon after liftoff was like nothing I had ever seen before. I got goosebumps all over, watching it successfully land and a sense of pride that made me smile ear to ear. Getting the chance to see the launch was definitely a wonderful reward for all the work and effort it took to make this mission a success.
Preflight for FFL-02 is now complete! I hope that everyone who has been reading these posts has gotten a taste of what it takes to send an experiment to the International Space Station. Even then, my words on this blog don’t even come close to doing justice to all the people who have contributed to this FFL-02 project.
A special thank you to the entire FFL-02 team, both here at Kennedy and back at home at Ames. This mission was a long time coming and everyone’s continual hard work and perseverance were such an integral part of this mission’s success. Thank you to the Principal Investigator Team, Karen Ocorr and Erika Taylor of the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, for their partnership. Thank you to all the teams of people at Kennedy who helped send our experiment to the International Space Station. Last, but not least, thank you to all the family and friends who have supported and encouraged each of us in all the long hours and long trips away from home to make this mission a success.
Blog Post 15 – June 2, 2017: Handover of FFL-02 Experiment, Take Two
Today was another early start, much like for our first handover of the experiment to the team preparing the cargo for launch. Honestly, it feels like it’s been much longer, but actually it’s only been two days since we completed the last one. Much like last time, our engineering team was ready at 7 a.m. to put our sets of egg-lay and adult samples inside the hardware. It’s a long and tedious process getting our precious samples ready for hand-off, but it ensures that everything is done properly.
Meanwhile, the science team continued with the usual task of collecting the adult flies and virgin flies of each of the fly lines. Today, we also have to flip the flies, to maintain our population of fly lines. Good news, though: tonight, we don’t have a night shift! It’s the first time this week where we won’t have to go back into lab after dinner; definitely a welcome break from the very long days that we have been having.
In the meantime, weather does not bode well for us at the next launch attempt on June 3. It has been cloudy and rainy for most of the day now, with occasional lightning in the area. Even so, we press forward and prepare for the launch, regardless!
An added bonus for all of us on the team to worry about is our travel plans to go home. Most of us anticipated that this launch would be successful so we had planned to leave soon after the launch. For myself, I leave Kennedy two days after the launch. However, with the launch date that is unknown and keeps moving, keeping up with all the travel plans like flights, hotel and car reservations becomes an added stress, as we desperately have to find accommodations to stay in the area during the busy tourist season. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s one more thing on our very full plates. Hopefully we don’t have to change too many more times!
Blog Post 14 – June 1, 2017: Launch Day!
Today’s the big day that we have been waiting for. This mission has been delayed for many months, and so the fact that it’s finally here, is quite surreal. Yet, just because today is launch day does not mean that the daily tasks stop! We still have to collect our adult flies and virgin flies for subsequent launch attempts in case this launch “scrubs”, or is called off. But here’s to hoping that it does not scrub and we don’t need to use these flies!
Once we were done with our usual routine of collecting the adult flies and virgin flies, we had a couple hours to spare, before getting ready to go watch the launch. There was too little time to go outside of Kennedy, so a couple of us decided to go hang out at the Visitor Complex to get our minds off the anticipation of the launch. Just as expected, there were a lot of visitors, because it was a launch day. It was great to see the public just as excited as we were. There were long lines that wrapped around the Visitor Complex for visitors to take the bus to a launch viewing site!
As the day progressed, I had an inescapable urge to keep checking the weather at Kennedy Space Center. There had been storm warnings throughout the day, for right around the time that we were scheduled for launch. I kept hoping that it would change, that the weather would cooperate and somehow the lurking dark clouds would give way to a beautiful, sunny afternoon. But, alas, as we left the Visitor Complex, I heard the thunder and felt the drops come down as we drove back to the Space Station Processing Facility. I still tried to hold onto a shred of hope that either storms can move quickly or the lightning will strike far enough away.
By the time we arrived back at SSPF, our whole group was about to get ready to go to our viewing spot for the launch scheduled for 5:55 p.m. EDT. We carpooled over and were joined by other groups as well; all of us eagerly waiting for the launch. We all kept checking our phones for updates, any signs or information about whether the launch was a go or no go. The anticipation felt like a knot in my chest, as I reflected on all the work it took to get to this point. It’s been a long journey to get here, and I will be glad to see the rocket launch and go. I kept pacing around the cars, unable to stand still, but I tried to keep a smile with optimism that the rocket would launch. All seemed well until, at 5:31 p.m., the mission was officially scrubbed due to a lightning strike right here in the Merritt Island area, where Kennedy Space Center is located.
Of course, it was disappointing, but we all knew this was part of the job, and also were well prepared for this scenario. Before heading back to SSPF, our team decided to grab dinner, to help us all to shake it off and continue with our next launch attempt, on June 3 at 5:07 p.m. EDT.
We headed back to SSPF for the night shift in preparation for the next launch attempt. Like we did two nights ago! Last night, we had set up the egg-lay samples set, so those adults were emptied to leave only eggs in the vials. Virgin flies that were collected earlier were transferred into vials for the adult samples set. Once the sets were completed, we numbered each vial again, and prepared for another handover tomorrow morning. With that, we are done with another long day; 16+ hours later it’s time to head back to the hotel to rest up for another early morning.
Blog Post 13 – May 31, 2017: Handover of FFL-02 Experiment
This morning was an earlier one for everyone! I was in early as usual, but the whole team was also here by 8 a.m. We have a lot planned for today! Yesterday, we had finished setting up all the vials with our samples. We had two different sets of samples: the egg-lay and the adult fly samples that needed to be inserted into the hardware system, which we call the Vented Fly Box, or VFB.
Today is the day before our scheduled launch, which means that we have to hand over our experiment to be put into the Dragon capsule by 30 hours before launch, or L-30 hours. At 8 a.m., our engineering team was ready to put samples inside the flight hardware. For our experiment, we have six VFBs that will be going into space. Each of these experiment boxes will contain 15 vials of either the egg-lay samples or adult fly samples. We numbered the vials in a specific way to keep exact track of which vial is in which position, and then placed in a foam tray to keep them secure and keep the jostling down to the minimum. Sensors are then placed on the inside of the end-caps of the VFBs and everything is screwed together securely. It sounds simple here, but, actually, each step of our procedure had to be carefully followed and monitored to ensure that everything was done properly. Once all the VFBs were loaded with our precious fly samples, the boxes were placed into a cargo transfer bag before handing it off to the cargo mission contract, or CMC, team. The team will then hand it over to SpaceX to be put into the Dragon capsule and onto the Falcon 9 rocket.
And with that, our experiment is out of our hands! We’ve done our best, and now we are at the mercy of weather and other factors that we cannot control. It’s a relief, but now the waiting begins until tomorrow’s scheduled launch at 5:55 p.m. EDT.
Just because we have handed over our samples doesn’t mean that we sit around and dawdle. Actually, we still have our normal daily routine of collecting adult and virgin flies in the morning and afternoon. Then, another round of setting up our egg-lay samples at night, like we did two nights ago. Why, you may ask? Well, because we also need to prepare for later launch attempts, in case this one doesn’t go as planned and the launch is postponed. The entire process of setting up the two sets of fly samples takes three days to complete and even more days to plan! Therefore, we need to get started now! We always hope the launch won’t “slip”, as they say, but we need to be prepared if it does. That’s the spaceflight life: preparing for a future launch that we won’t know we need until we see whether or not the rocket launches.
Another long day, but we’re finally done! It’s going to be another sleepless night in anticipation of tomorrow’s launch. Time to cross our fingers, maybe even our toes, and hope for the best!
Blog Post 12 – May 30, 2017: Early Morning Photo Adventure and Late Night Sample Set-Up
I had a rather sleepless night, despite how exhausted and tired I was from yesterday. Perhaps it is the stress and anxiety creeping in; I’m not really sure. To save myself from just sitting in bed, I decided that I would explore Kennedy beyond the SSPF and take some nice photos early in the morning. When I drove into Kennedy, I first drove to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and then to the front of the Visitor Complex for my photos. It was already starting to get warm even at 7 a.m., but the peace and quiet was nice to calm the mind, and get my mind off fruit flies. With my mini driving adventure, I was reminded that I had visited Kennedy Space Center for the first time when I was in middle school. I remember, as a child, seeing postcards of the VAB and the space shuttles. So, having the chance to see the real buildings and the shuttle Atlantis, while taking part in the FFL-02 mission, feels unreal in the best way. It’s a good, sobering reminder, when preflight operations get under the skin, to feel humbled by such an opportunity. I definitely needed to switch into that mindset, and then I quickly drove back to the SSPF to start the activities for the day.
By 9 a.m., everyone from the team had arrived at the labs to get to work. It’s almost like clockwork now, all of us knowing exactly what to do and when. A deep breath in, and we continue with the collection of adults and virgins. Thankfully the process is getting easier now; repetition really is a great way to learn. When we all finished, instead of staying in Kennedy the entire day, we were able to take a break before having to return in the evening. A couple of us went out for a late lunch and ice cream. Sometimes that’s what you need to keep spirits up, knowing you’ll have to go back to work at night.
By 8 p.m. all of the team had returned to SSPF. We were now at the point of setting up both sets of samples that will go into the experiment’s spaceflight hardware. First, we used the virgin flies that we have been collecting for each of the lines to load more vials to set up the adult samples. The adult samples will contain the flies for the duration of the entire mission. Because all the flies were separated as virgins, we know that none of the flies have mated and, therefore, we can control the timing of when they mate. This set of flies is actually a repeat of the successful HEART FLIES mission, which flew in 2014 on the third resupply flight of SpaceX to the space station, to ensure that we can return live flies to Earth successfully. Then, we prepared the egg-lay samples by taking the vials that we filled yesterday with adults, and emptying out all the adults so that only eggs are present in the food. This is important because we can then time the emergence of the flies when they are in space and, when they emerge, they will all be of the same generation.
With that, we are done for tonight. Tomorrow we will be back early in the morning, for final preparations before handing over our samples!
Blog Post 11 – May 29, 2017: Spaceflight Life: Fourteen-Hour Work Day at SSPF
Today started with another early morning in SSPF, the Space Station Processing Facility, before the team arrived. I was a little more anxious than usual because of the stress from collections the day before. But I went in early to get some work done and calm the nerves before people started to arrive.
By 9 a.m. everyone was ready for work and we all got busy with collecting flies and virgins. I must say, today was a little easier. I was still struggling with the number of virgins needed coming up short, but I was assured that we would be alright with the numbers that we have. The hours came and went, and, soon enough, it was definitely time for lunch. Since nothing near SSPF is open on Memorial Day, we went to visit the Saturn V Center and grab a bite to eat there. Unfortunately, we weren’t there to look around, but I was able to scarf down my food and take a quick look around before heading back to work.
With our lunch done, that meant it was time to make food for the flies, too. We found out that we didn’t have enough to flip the flies again, so it was time to pull out Willie and all the food ingredients to make food! Thankfully, we had a contingency plan set for unexpected situations just like this. Making the fly food was a long process, with mixing ingredients like agar, soy flour, malt extract, yeast, molasses, and cornmeal. The 11.5 liters of food was mixed inside Willie the steam kettle and then it was poured into bottles and vials to cool overnight for use the next day.
By the time we finished making the food, it was dinnertime, and I had a little time to spare to relax and eat a couple bites. We decided not to leave the lab areas, because it takes too long to get out of Kennedy before having to come straight back.
By 9 p.m., it was time to do our first set-up of the egg-lay sample set. We used our adult flies that we have been collecting for the past few days to put into the new vials that will be used for flight! First, the flies were anesthetized with CO2, and then carefully dumped onto the fly pad where they can stay knocked out. We sorted and counted each of the fly lines, ensuring that, for the flight vials, we have the healthiest of the ones we have collected before. It took a couple hours of us sorting the entire time, but just before midnight we were finished for the day.
Most of our team has been here for 14+ hours. It’s been a very long day, but it continues with an early morning start again tomorrow!
Blog Post 10 – May 28, 2017: First Virgin Fly Collection and a Successful Static-Fire Test
It’s our second day of work on the weekend and I am hoping that we get to finish early again. Collections start at 9 a.m., but with an added bonus! Today, we will now be collecting virgin flies for the adult samples on top of the normal collection of around 5,000 flies.
Virgin flies, as the name suggests, are flies that have not mated with another fly. This is important, because it allows the researcher to control when and which flies mate to produce offspring. It is particularly important because if the flies, and more particularly the females, are not virgins when mated, it is almost impossible to tell if the young fly produced is the genetic offspring of the desired parents. This can really mess up the results in the long run. In our case, since we are only allowing males and females with the same genotype, or genetic makeup, to mate, we are mainly concerned with the timing of when the flies mate, and having virgin males and females separated allows us to control that. Therefore, it is crucial to separate virgin flies from the rest of the population.
So how can a researcher tell if the flies are virgin? There are a couple of ways that this can be done.
- First, the flies can be visually inspected. Virgin flies are characterized by their pale color and are generally larger in size. In time, they will darken when they are more mature. This method uses their physical characteristics to identify virgins.
- Secondly, the virgin flies can be collected by using a removal method. The window of time when newly emerged female flies stay virgin and don’t mate is only 8-10 hours at normal room temperature of 25°C. Therefore, the females have to be collected before that window closes to ensure that they are virgin. This can be done by completely emptying a stock bottle of adult flies and then waiting 8-10 hours to collect the newly emerged flies. If done correctly, this method uses time to distinguish virgins, and all the flies that have emerged in that window should be virgin.
Interestingly, it’s possible to extend that window of time by controlling the temperature at which the fly cultures are kept. If the temperature is dropped from the normal 25C room temperature to 18C, development is slowed and the window of opportunity increases to approximately 16 hours. For example, if the flies are emptied in the afternoon or evening time, then placed in 18C, they can be collected the next morning and should still be virgins.
So today, we collected our first set of virgin flies, on top of the normal collection of some 5,000 flies. We try to collect a total of around 1,400 virgin flies (both male and female), making the new grand total 6,400 flies collected every day. To be honest, starting virgin collections was the part of the experiment where I had the least experience, which in turn gave me the most anxiety. But you bite your lip, and with supportive team mates, you carry on and try your best. By the end, I don’t think “difficult” even began to describe this process for me; it was long, frustrating, and tiring – a mix of five hours of hunching over and staring straight into a microscope, all the flies starting to look the same, and there being only so much blinking and stretching one can do. I think exhaustion and the fatigue of long days was starting to get to me, and I could feel it. The first day is always the hardest, but here’s to a much better second day of virgin collection.
On a happier note, the static-fire test was successful today! At 12pm EST, SpaceX fired the engines of its Falcon 9 rocket for a little over three seconds before shutting it off; a customary test to check for readiness before the scheduled liftoff on June 1. It’s one step closer to a successful launch! Fingers crossed for an on-time launch next Thursday!
Blog Post 9 – May 27, 2017: Saturday Morning Fly Work with a Sneak Peek into the ISSES Chamber
Right now, it’s relatively early for a Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend. Curiously enough, I am starting this blog post in a dark corner of our cubicle area, because I cannot figure out how to turn on the light when no one has gotten here to the building yet. I get the opportunity to take part in sending flies into space, but I can’t even figure out the light switch situation – a bit ironic, I must say. Thankfully, I know the logistics team here at Kennedy will be in soon to come to the rescue. Just because it is the weekend doesn’t mean that we get the day off. The science does not stop for three-day weekends, so we carry on!
All of the team members got in at 9 a.m. to do the usual: collect flies and clear the bottles. Our flies are not actually kept in the labs, like they are back at Ames. They are kept in an ISSES Chamber, which stands for International Space Station Environmental Simulator and vaguely resembles a giant walk-in closet for our flies. For our purposes for preflight preparations, it keeps desired environmental variables constant for the flies inside. Some of those variables include carbon dioxide levels, temperature and relative humidity, all of which can affect the growth of the fruit flies. By creating an environment that is optimal for the flies, we are able to ensure they are as healthy as can be.
Once we all finished our tasks, we put the flies back into the ISSES Chamber and had the rest of the day off! I had the chance to go out and enjoy Cocoa Beach by kayaking for a few hours, before having a joint dinner with the Fruit Fly team and some of the Rodent Research team. It was lovely to have a chance to enjoy the company of the other team members getting ready for this launch.
Blog Post 8 – May 26, 2017: Why Study Fruit Flies?
Per the usual, it’s another day of collecting flies for another set of about 5,000 flies and flipping more flies to maintain the stocks. Each set of around 5,000 flies that we collect provides us with flies that we can use to set up the egg-lay samples. These are samples that will only have eggs in the food when the vials are put into the final hardware for spaceflight. In order for us to create those samples, adult flies have to spend about four days in the vials to mate and produce eggs. After the four days, the adult flies are taken out so that only eggs are in the sample. But for today, I’d like to take a step back from all of our day-to-day activities and give a little background information about the experiment.
For the FFL-02 mission, the NASA Ames team and the principal investigator’s team have partnered to help address the negative impact of long-term space travel on the heart. From past missions, it is already known that astronauts return to Earth with changes in the heart’s function and shape. By using the fruit fly as a model organism, our team is looking to find changes on the genetic level that cause the heart to change, in order to find ways to mitigate the problem for future space travel.
So, why study fruit flies? To most people, fruit flies and humans definitely do not look very similar. So how can they be used to study humans? Believe it or not, the fruit fly is a great model organism to study a variety of different processes related to human biology. Just to name a few, the fruit fly has been used as a model to study stress, immune systems, cardiovascular systems, aging and development. It is estimated that 75% of human disease genes have a homolog, or similar gene, in the fruit fly, which makes it useful to study their genes as well! Fruit fly populations are also relatively straightforward to keep up and maintain with few resources. All of these reasons make it a very useful organism for research.
So, it is not by chance that we are studying fruit flies in space. They are a great model for studying the cardiovascular system, which is a part of the human body that we can all agree is very important for our survival. The information that we can obtain is going to be crucial in our quest to understand and better prepare for long-duration space flight, as well as help to treat patients here on Earth as well.
During the FFL-02 mission, both teams will be working closely together to help make this mission a success. The PI team will be providing their expertise in flies and also assisting the members of the NASA Ames science team in all the daily fly work that needs to be done. Flies will be collected from the stock bottles that we have been maintaining for each line. Two sets of flies are needed for the experiment: the set of about 5,000 adult flies for the egg-lay samples and virgin flies for the adult samples. So far, we’ve just been collecting for the egg-lay samples so stay tuned for how we collect virgin flies and how we put the whole experiment together!
Judging from this past week, with all there is to be done from this point forward, we are all grateful for our fellow scientists’ help and expertise!
Blog Post 7 – May 25, 2017: Another Day in the Fruit Fly Lab, Another Day of Collection
I came in bright and early to work today to catch up on a few things. Of course, jetlag came back with a vengeance last night and I definitely was not feeling one hundred percent. But we still push forward! The principal investigator’s team members arrived at Space Station Processing Facility at 9 a.m. They, too, went through the safety briefing and, soon after, got tours of the labs. Meanwhile, the rest of us continued to collect flies. Just like the day before, we collected all the flies that had emerged overnight. Once we collected the full set of flies needed, we emptied more fly stock bottles to get ready for collection tomorrow.
The activities today were just about the same as yesterday. It may seem a bit uneventful and tedious, but it’s part of the nature of doing science. It isn’t always high-energy action; sometimes, science is as calm as collecting and sorting flies with good music in the background. With an experiment that involves live organisms and a challenging goal of sending them into space, there are plenty of what seem like repetitive tasks that are actually crucial to the success of the experiment! In our case, each day of collecting and sorting flies gives us another set of flies for part of the experiment. Every part of the experiment is the chance to learn something new and contribute to important research!
Blog Post 6 – May 25, 2017: Our First Fly Collection Day
Today was our first day of fly collection. For a recap: We cleared the bottles yesterday, so we know the age of the flies that have emerged from their eggs since. Now that a day has gone by, new flies have, in fact, emerged, and we are ready to collect them!
First, we grabbed vials that were made and sent to us by the PI, or principal investigator’s, team. (The PI is the scientist leading the particular experiment that will be using our Fruit Fly Lab hardware system this time, and that our team is helping get ready for launch.) We use fly bottles to keep a constant population of flies going. The vials, which look like small plastic tubes, are used for the fly collection stage and, eventually, will be loaded into the hardware used for spaceflight.
The food inside is the same between fly bottles and vials, but the PI’s team will make all the food for the vials. This is for two main reasons: first, their lab is able to support the volume of food needed for all the flies that we maintain and collect. Second, for the science, consistency with food is another variable to keep constant in an experiment, so that there is no question about the integrity of the food.
Next, we took the fly bottles and anesthetized the newly emerged flies with CO2 to empty them onto a fly pad. The fly pad allows the user to be able to work with the flies by keeping them knocked out with a steady flow of CO2. Flies cannot be kept on the pad indefinitely; no longer than 20 minutes.
During that time, we sort the flies based on sex and phenotype, or physical traits, within their different genetic lines. We use a thin paint brush to maneuver the flies around the pad. Then the flies are collected into vials and labeled with the name of the genetic line, date, time, and number of males and females. This time around, we added 10 males and 30 females to each vial. The process is continued until there are either enough flies collected or there are no more flies to collect from the cleared bottles. Between all the different fly lines and multiple bottles per line, the grand total comes to almost 5,000 flies every day!
Once we had the flies collected, we then cleared the bottles just like the day before, to be able to collect again tomorrow. As you can imagine, this whole process took a long time today and a lot of effort to complete. This is only the first of many more collections: one every day until our scheduled launch date of June 1. I am sure it will be easier and faster with more collections, but I am glad this one is done!
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Post 5 – May 24, 2017: Flipping Fly Stocks and Clearing Flies
Today’s the second day in, and, thank goodness, the jet lag has definitely subsided! The morning was relatively slow with catch-up on work and emails. In the afternoon, I got to jump into some of the fruit fly maintenance tasks.
First, the fly stocks need to be flipped. Flipping fly stocks is how we maintain a healthy population of flies. In most cases, bottles of flies are transferred to new bottles of fresh fly food once every couple of fly generations. The adult flies breed and lay eggs inside the food. Believe it or not, female flies can lay over a hundred eggs a day! The many eggs develop into new adults in 10-12 days at room temperature, and then all those adults in the bottle are transferred, or flipped, into new bottles. This is how we maintain or expand our stocks, by changing out the food and allowing more flies to be bred.
Secondly, we prepared to collect flies tomorrow by first clearing certain bottles today. The bottles are cleared by emptying them of adult flies that have had a chance to lay eggs in the fly food medium. This is done to guarantee that the flies that will emerge from those eggs are aged accurately. This is because once flies emerge as adults, it is very difficult to determine their age.
Now that those tasks are finished, fly collection will begin tomorrow!
Next Time: Fly collection and sorting flies by sex and different physical characteristics!
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Post 4 – May 22, 2017: First Day in the Fruit Fly Lab
It’s my first day back to the labs at Kennedy! Last night, I realized I had no idea how to get to the lab, which is in the Space Station Processing Facility, otherwise known as the SSPF. Luckily, I hitched a ride from my fellow team members and headed through the Cape Canaveral Airforce Base and to the SSPF. It was all coming back to me slowly, driving through the base and seeing all the familiar roads and buildings that I remember from last time. Once I settled in, the first order of business was a safety briefing – a good reminder of the safety and security policies.
For the rest of the afternoon, it was mostly small tasks here and there before having to do mite-checks on the flies. Mite-checks, like the name suggests, are our way of checking to see if there are any mites in the food or the fly population. A mite infestation has the potential to threaten the health of a fruit fly population, so we take great care in making sure we do not have any in the fly lines by checking for them in the bottles under the microscope, and keeping the work station very clean.
We usually check for mites in older bottles, about a month after adult flies are first put in the bottle to lay eggs. Mites tend to come out when the population is older, because their life cycle is longer than that of a fly. So, if we check older fly bottles, we can see if mites have been transferred there and take steps to respond to the issue.
It can be tedious, but it is another way to ensure that we have healthy populations for the experiment. Thankfully, we have not had any in our populations for months, and these looked like they were good to go!
By the end of the working day, I was quite exhausted. Not so much from the work I needed to do, but the three-hour jetlag is quite rough the first day. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be so rough and I’ll be back to 100%.
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Post 3 – May 21, 2017: Travel to Cape Canaveral
It has been an entire month since I wrote the last post! A lot has been happening since then. The truck with the flies and supplies arrived at Kennedy safely. Team 1 has been at Kennedy preparing the lab and maintaining the flies, while Team 2, which I am a part of, has been at Ames waiting to go join them. After a month, we’ve finally arrived!
This morning, I woke up before the crack of dawn for my 7 a.m. flight out of Mineta San Jose International Airport. As I waited at the gate to board the plane, I was filled with a mix of emotions: mostly excitement, with a dash of anxiety. This isn’t the first time I have headed out to Kennedy Space Center for a mission. For the fifth SpaceX launch to resupply the space station, I was part of the team running another experiment – T-Cell Activation in Aging – and that was an experience of a lifetime that I never thought I would be able to take part in again. You’d think I’d be less nervous with this being my second time around, but I’m giddier than ever. It’s two and a half years later and I get to do it all over again!
The first leg of my journey was a short flight from San Jose to Las Vegas. Then, it was a quick layover before heading all the way from Las Vegas to Orlando. After I landed, I grabbed my checked luggage and then drove 45 minutes to Cape Canaveral to settle in. It has been a long day of traveling, but for now, it is time to rest. I am so excited to get started!
Next Time: Read about Team 2’s first day back with the Fruit Fly Lab at Kennedy.
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Post 2 – April 17, 2017: Shipment of FFL-02’s Precious Cargo
Shipment Day is here! The day has finally arrived and the whole team is anxious for it to begin. This isn’t the first time we’ve prepared for packing the truck. Earlier this year, our team was told right at the last minute that an anticipated launch was delayed…right as the truck was at the front gate of Ames Research Center. So, naturally, we wondered in our heads: Would this really be the day?
Monday morning started quite early, around 7 a.m. We came into the labs to finish packing up the flies that we were sending to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Each of the 50 boxes of flies was held together by two cardboard trays and tied like a present with natural rope. Then, groups of two or three boxes were tied together with rope for extra security.
Lastly, stacks of five boxes were securely tied down along the edges of the pallet, leaving a large opening in the center. This orientation allows for ample air flow for the live fruit flies, despite being stacked. As an extra precaution, we wove temperature sensors and their wires through our precious cargo of flies so that we could monitor the temperature during their long journey. Because of the rapid life cycle of fruit flies, some of these will be the ancestors of the flies that we send into space!
Just as scheduled, the truck and its two drivers arrived to pick up a whole mission worth of supplies, including Willie the steam kettle, the stirrer and the large table that the kettle will be clamped to. Then, they picked up two pallets worth of supplies. Lastly, we loaded and secured the pallet of flies carefully onto the truck. We spent some time finalizing the arrangement of cargo, making sure that it was all secure for the cross-country journey. As I have learned, you can never have too much bubble wrap and it’s always smart to keep tape and a pair of scissors in your back pocket when dealing with cargo. Finally, the door of the truck was sealed to ensure that no one else could touch our contents, and our team sent the truck and its drivers off on its cross-country journey from California to Florida.
It was a long, but rewarding day: five hours of packing, the culmination of what took many months of work to prepare. As the truck leaves, it also means that Team 1 of the science team will be leaving soon to meet the flies and supplies at Kennedy where they will set up the lab and maintain the flies. Team 2, which includes myself, will join them at Kennedy two weeks before launch to support the majority of the pre-flight activities. While it can feel like it’s only one small piece of the puzzle in getting ready, it’s a major step in the right direction as we continue to work towards the goal of launching our FFL-02 experiment.
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Post 1 – April 14, 2017: Preparations to Ship
Our preparations for shipment started the Friday before the “white-glove” truck arrived at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The truck that we ordered was no ordinary cargo truck! It features specialized services such as temperature control and around-the-clock driving and updates. Because of the nature of our cargo, this was required to be sure that our flies and supplies get to Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the best shape.
That Friday, we folded a hundred cardboard trays and transferred our 1,000 bottles of flies to the new trays. We gathered all of our fly bottles to color-code them with the tape that secures the plugs on the bottles, to indicate the different genetic lines of the flies.
We then secured our steam kettle, appropriately named after Willie from “Steamboat Willie”, to a pallet and wrapped the accompanying stirrer with bubble wrap. At Ames, Willie and the stirrer have been vital in cooking and mixing 20 liters of fly food a week to maintain the large population of flies. They will be our backup plan while at Kennedy, if we need more than the fly food that will be shipped to us by the principal investigator’s team.
Lastly, we packed our science box with miscellaneous supplies that we may need at Kennedy. We saved last-minute items to be packed on Monday morning right before the truck arrives at Ames.
Next time: Read about what it takes to ship an entire experiment, including a thousand bottles of fruit flies and Willie the steam kettle, to Kennedy.
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Post 0 – An Introduction to Our Mission: Fruit Fly Lab-02
Hello! My name is Christina Cheung, and I’m a contracted support scientist for the Fruit Fly Lab at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The most common question that I get asked as I meet new people goes along the lines of “What do you do for a living?” As I start with the short and sweet answer of “I work at NASA’s Ames Research Center,” sometimes an opportunity comes along to explain further that I work with Drosophila melanogaster, more commonly known as the fruit fly, and that I have the opportunity to send thousands of them to the International Space Station. Of course, the response that immediately follows is one of eye-widening and fascination. Then a slew of questions begins, ranging from a simple “But, why?” to a lengthier, “How does that even happen??”
So, in this blog over the next few weeks, I’m going to give you a behind-the-scenes view into our experiment!
To start, let me briefly address those questions: Fruit flies are a long-established model organism that have been used for scientific research both on Earth and in space. For the FFL-02 mission, the Fruit Fly Lab from NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley is partnering with the Bodmer Lab from Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California to study the effects of spaceflight on the cardiovascular system. This will be done using the Vented Fly Box hardware platform, a simple but effective system created at Ames, which will house fruit fly lines with different genetic makeups (more details about the platform in a later post!). The fruit flies, which are a great model to study cardiovascular systems, will be launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and will spend time in the space environment of the International Space Station before returning to Earth for further study.
The FFL-02 mission is made up of three different stages: the pre-flight, the flight launch and execution of the experiment onboard the station, and the post-flight activities – all of which are essential for the entire experiment. For the eleventh commercial resupply flight of SpaceX to the International Space Station, which will launch FFL-02, I have a unique opportunity to take readers on a journey of what it takes to send the experiment to space. I am by no means the sole person involved, but rather I am merely one scientist of a team of incredibly dedicated members. All of us work tirelessly on this experiment, which will help provide insight into long-term space travel and improve human lives on Earth. I hope this personal account of this experience provides a glimpse into the incredible workings of the Fruit Fly Lab for the FFL-02 mission.