Source: Vesti
The Russian Academy of Sciences announced that experts are preparing an experiment in which 1,500 fruit flies will be sent into space for experiments.
Regarding the topic, the head of the Academy’s Biophysics Laboratory, Irina Ogneva, said: “We plan to send 1,500 fruit flies aboard Bion-M Laboratory No. 2, which Russia will launch into Earth’s orbits, to test the abilities of these organisms to adapt to space conditions and zero-gravity conditions. The laboratory is planned.” To be launched in the third quarter of 2024.
She added: “We conducted a similar experiment in 2014 when we sent fruit flies aboard the Foton-M scientific satellite No. 4, where these creatures remained in space for 45 days, and were then returned to Earth, and the new generation that we obtained from these insects was then sent to the station.” International Space. In that experiment, we discovered that flies adapted to conditions of zero gravity and were able to reproduce, and the second generation of these insects reproduced more. Our goal is to study the effect of long space flights on organisms, and the effect of space radiation on them as well, which will help us know these effects. On the astronauts that Russia will send into space and to its new orbital station.”
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, had previously indicated that it was working on a project to launch the “Bion-M” laboratory No. 2 into space in 2024. The aim of its launch is to send laboratory mice, fruit flies, and some types of bacteria, fungi, and cellular tissues into space, to study the effects of… Weightlessness and cosmic rays on these objects.
The agency noted that the laboratory will work for about a month in space, in an orbit 400 km from the surface of the Earth, which will help study some of the space equipment that Russia will use in the new (ROS) orbital station.