Spacex launches ants, avocados, robot to space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – 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. The Dragon is carrying more than 4,800 pounds 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 Wisconsinmadison 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.