SpaceX science: Pesky fruit flies may give insight into human heart

To learn more about the human heart’s response to prolonged exposure to space’s microgravity, you just have to look at the fruit fly, scientist Karen Ocorr says.

To advance that research, she will send dozens of the pesky little bugs to the International Space Station from Florida today, if all goes as planned.

SpaceX plans to launch one of its Falcon 9 rockets into space from historic Launch Complex 39A. The expected 5:55 p.m. launch — the 11th of 12 resupply missions sent to the station by SpaceX under its contract with NASA — will carry nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station.

SpaceX, which has been pursuing reusability of its rockets, also will be relaunching one of its Dragon cargo spacecraft, which returned from the space station and was recovered in 2014.

The liftoff will mark the 100th launch from Launch Complex 39A, which SpaceX now leases.

That pad hosted the Apollo 11 mission, which sent Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon, in 1969.

Included in today’s cargo mission are several scientific experiments, including one that will test a new solarpanel concept that could someday power electric thrusters on NASA’s future space vehicles.

Another experiment will look at whether bone loss in space can be reversed.

But for Ocorr, it’s all about the fruit flies.

“We use them as a model to understand human heart function,” said Ocorr, a Sanford Burnham Prebys scientist based in California.

Ocorr, who is in Florida for the launch, said fruit flies’ hearts function more like humans’ than even the always popular lab rats and mice.

She has yet to witness a rocket launch in person. In 2014, she was in Florida for a previous flight that was part of fruit-fly research. But multiple scrubs scrapped that plan, and she had to return to California before the mission actually took off.

So Thursday’s planned launch has extra meaning for her.

Still, her primary concern is the tiny cargo.

“The rumbling vibration, the sound, it should be an altogether amazing experience and I’m looking forward to that,” Ocorr said.“But also to knowing that my flies are headed in the right direction.”