Genes in Space winner in the US to watch her experiment take off
She wants to be the first Emirati in space and to plant the UAE’s flag on the surface of Mars.
And tomorrow, Alia Al Mansoori, 15, will get her first taste of what that involves when a Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
Alia will not be on board, but her work will be. The Dragon capsule on the SpaceX ship carries her winning experiment from The National’s Genes in Space competition.
She and her family will be watching the lift-off at the Nasa complex as guests of Boeing, sponsor of the nationwide contest. The capsule will carry her experiment to the International Space Station, where it will be tested by the crew.
Last week, Alia was at Harvard University to help prepare her experiment for its voyage into orbit. Her winning entry uses ribonucleic acid (RNA), a molecule that, like DNA, is key part of all living things.
Samples of RNA will be tested on board the space station in an adapted version of a machine called a miniPCR DNA Discovery System.
She hopes to see if the samples, taken from nematode worms, behave differently in space than on Earth, something that could prove crucial for the long-distance space travel Alia hopes to undertake.
The samples, in several dozen small vials, have been deep-frozen and packed in dry ice before being sent to the space centre.
Alia’s terrestrial journey has been an amazing one since winning the competition.
She has met Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is training to be an ambassador for Expo 2020, and has visited Canada to explore education options in her chosen fields of molecular biology and medicine.
The Genes in Space contest attracted more than 100 entries and aims to promote science in the UAE’s schools.
“I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut,” says Alia, a pupil at Al Mawakeb school. “When I go to Mars, hopefully I will be taking the UAE flag with me.”
The launch tomorrow is a resupply mission for the space station and takes place in the complex where Apollo 11 left for the Moon in 1969. It was also used for shuttle missions.
It will use a commercial rocket built by SpaceX, the company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, who is also behind Tesla electric cars.
The Falcon 9 is one of the most sophisticated rockets yet built and can land the first stage under its own power for re-use.
The launch scheduled for tomorrow has been delayed several times but was finally cleared by Nasa on Thursday after a successful test of the nine Merlin main engines. Ten minutes after lift-off, the first stage of the rocket will land at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The Dragon capsule will continue into orbit for a rendezvous with the space station on Wednesday morning. Astronauts will use a robotic arm to capture the capsule, which will be docked with the space station until its return to Earth in September.
This will be the 12th mission conducted by SpaceX for its contract with Nasa and will carry dozens of scientific experiments alongside Alia’s, as well as supplies and equipment.
Other experiments include growing vegetables and medical research. Alia’s experiment will be returned to Earth for evaluation, although no date has yet been set.
I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut. When I go to Mars, hopefully I will be taking the UAE flag with me