MCAFT-1 (Sounding Rocket Flight 41.057 DP Heath/IBSi)

Outcome of the Biological Sciences Experiment. 

            Flight 41.057 DP, a Terrier MK12 Improved-Orion Sounding Rocket, was successfully launched from Wallops Island, Virginia on May 5, 2005. On board the craft was a biological sciences package carrying T27A murine leukemia cells in a prototype of an instrument that will measure the effects of a microgravity environment on the metastatic capacity of tumor cells. The experiment was designed by students and faculty from the Department of Biological Sciences at Salisbury University. The prototype instrument was designed, constructed and tested by a team from the Aerospace Engineering Department at Old Dominion University. The purpose of the mission was to assess the ability of these cells to survive the conditions encountered during launch, suborbital flight, vehicle recovery, and extraction from the vehicle and instrument package in anticipation of future flights that will carry the experiment payload.

            At 1130 on May 4, cultures of T27A cells were removed from the cell culture incubator at Salisbury University and transported to the Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. At approximately 0230 on May 5, the cells were loaded into the instrument package, and the instrument package and launch vehicle were sealed. Nearly identical cell cultures were simultaneously prepared and remained on the ground. At 0533 the rocket was launched. Wallops flight engineers reported that the trajectory (apogee, 156 km) was within the nominal altitude and landing range bounds and that the launch vehicle performed within specifications. At 1430, after vehicle recovery and transport back to the Wallops Flight Facility, the cells were extracted, fixed and returned to the cell culture laboratory at Salisbury University. The ground-based cultures were treated identically. In the laboratory two sensitive parameters of cell well-being, cell morphology and cell proliferation rate, were measured and compared between the ground-based and launch-based cells. By all measures, cell cultures exposed to launch conditions were indistinguishable from those maintained on the ground. Our overall conclusion from this flight is that the T27A line of murine leukemia cells, when used in ODU instrument package, are ideal for sounding rocket experiments. In addition, this flight, combined with the scientific literature available on these cells, strongly suggest that this combination of cell type and instrumentation package will prove to be ideal for the metastatic capacity experiments planned in the next phase of the project. From the biological sciences standpoint, the mission was a complete success.