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Copernical Team
Experiments to study gravity's impact on bone cells are heading to the International Space Station
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![Nadab Wubshet, 5th year ME PhD student in professor Allen Liu’s Lab, holding up a microfluidic chip that will be sent to the International Space Station. Credit: Samuel Chen / University of Michigan Experiments to study gravity's impact on bone cells are heading to the International Space Station](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2022/experiments-to-study-g.jpg)
A pair of experiments exploring bone density, designed by engineers at the University of Michigan, has left the Wallops Island, Virginia launchpad aboard a Northrop Grumman Corp. Antares rocket for the International Space Station (ISS).
Allen Liu, U-M associate professor of mechanical engineering, and members of his research team detail how experiments in space can shed light on osteoporosis, a condition affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world—as well as how to keep astronauts safer.
What's the connection between bone density, osteoporosis and gravity that makes this space-based research relevant to regular people?
Ticket to ride with Boost!
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![“We are very grateful to ESA and its Boost! programme which has made funding and expertise available to Orbex. This support has underpinned and accelerated the delivery of key milestones in our journey toward our first launch from UK soil” - Chris Larmour, CEO, Orbex](https://www.esa.int/var/esa/storage/images/esa_multimedia/images/2022/10/we_are_very_grateful_to_esa_and_its_boost!_programme._this_support_has_underpinned_and_accelerated_the_delivery_of_key_milestones_in_our_journey_toward_our_first_launch_from_uk_soil_-_chris_larmour_ceo_orbex/24551718-1-eng-GB/We_are_very_grateful_to_ESA_and_its_Boost!_programme._This_support_has_underpinned_and_accelerated_the_delivery_of_key_milestones_in_our_journey_toward_our_first_launch_from_UK_soil_-_Chris_Larmour_CEO_Orbex_card_full.jpg)
In line with global trends, the European space transportation sector is under transformation – with more and more commercial actors taking the entrepreneurial challenge of proposing, developing and operating new services under private leadership. Acknowledging that a thriving commercial space transportation sector is of benefit to Europe, ESA is actively fostering new European privately-led space transportation services through its
Geophysicist Leigh Royden looks at Earth from the top down
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/geophysicist-leigh-wiki-royden-bg.jpg)
NASA fieldwork studies signs of climate change in Arctic boreal regions
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/nasa-isro-sar-nisar-marker-bg.jpg)
World's first optical atomic clock with highly charged ions
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/optical-interrogation-highly-charged-ion-atomic-clock-artwork-bg.jpg)
How magnetism could help explain Earth's formation
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/earth-magnetic-field-yellow-blue-bg.jpg)
RDARS Eagle Nest Autonomous Drone-In-a-Box solution supports SpaceX Starlink Satellite Communications
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/rdars-logo-bg.jpg)
NASA rolls Moon rocket out to Kennedy Space Center launch pad
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/artemis-1-wet-test-launch-pad-bg.jpg)
Last total lunar eclipse for three years arrives Tuesday
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![The moon is shown during a full lunar eclipse, Sunday, May 15, 2022, near Moscow, Idaho, with the reddish color caused by it passing into the shadow of the Earth. A Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022 total lunar eclipse will be visible throughout North America in the predawn hours -- the farther west, the better -- and across Asia, Australia and the rest of the Pacific after sunset. Credit: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File Last total lunar eclipse for three years arrives Tuesday](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/800a/2022/last-total-lunar-eclip.jpg)
Next-gen space-based positioning tech planned
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![](https://www.spxdaily.com/images-bg/beidou-satellite-navigation-system-earth-globe-exhibit-bg.jpg)