On a clear night, Kaitlyn VanSant will be able to watch her work whiz by. Knowing the success of her project, however, will have to wait until her tiny, temporary addition to the International Space Station returns to Earth.

"My family and I have definitely been looking up at night more frequently," said VanSant, who earned her doctorate from the Colorado School of Mines in materials science last year. Now a postdoctoral researcher with NASA, VanSant holds a unique collaborative appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

The pairing of NREL and NASA continues a long-standing alliance between solar power and space. Specialized photovoltaic (PV) panels turned to the sun have been used to generate electricity for Mars rovers and space probes, but the manufacturing costs of these high-efficiency solar cells are too high for use on Earth. Researchers at NREL are testing ways to bring those costs down for terrestrial applications and transforming how PV technologies could work in space as well.

The latest test will evaluate the potential use of perovskite solar cells in space and assess the durability of materials used in those cells.

A SpaceX shipment of ants, avocados and a human-sized robotic arm rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday.

The delivery—due to arrive Monday—is the company's 23rd for NASA in just under a decade.

A recycled Falcon rocket blasted into the predawn sky from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. After hoisting the Dragon capsule, the first-stage booster landed upright on SpaceX's newest ocean platform, named "A Shortfall of Gravitas." SpaceX founder Elon Musk continued his tradition of naming the booster-recovery vessels in tribute to the late science fiction writer Iain Banks and his Culture series.

The Dragon is carrying more than 4,800 pounds (2,170 kilograms) of supplies and experiments, and fresh food including avocados, lemons and even ice cream for the space station's seven astronauts.

The Girl Scouts are sending up ants, brine shrimp and plants as test subjects, while University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists are flying up seeds from mouse-ear cress, a small flowering weed used in genetic research. Samples of concrete, solar cells and other materials also will be subjected to weightlessness.

A Japanese start-up company's experimental robotic arm, meanwhile, will attempt to screw items together in its orbital debut and perform other mundane chores normally done by astronauts.