![]() Later that day, NASA declared the astronauts lost. Shortly afterward, NASA declared a space shuttle 'contingency' and sent search and rescue teams to the suspected debris sites in Texas and later, Louisiana. The caller said a television network was showing a video of the shuttle breaking up in the sky. Twelve minutes later, when Columbia should have been making its final approach to the runway, a mission controller received a phone call. Mission Control made several attempts to get in touch with the astronauts, with no success. At 8:59:32 a.m., Husband called back from Columbia: "Roger," followed by a word that was cut off in mid-sentence.Īt that point, Columbia was near Dallas, traveling 18 times the speed of sound and still 200,700 feet (61,170 meters) above the ground. The Capcom, or spacecraft communicator, called up to Columbia to discuss the tire pressure readings. This image was received by NASA as part of the Columbia accident investigation. The image was taken at approximately 7:57 a.m. 1, 2003, as it passed by the Starfire Optical Range, Directed Energy Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. If they are performing well, perhaps we can deploy them in space and utilize them.This image is a view of the underside of Columbia during its entry from mission STS-107 on Feb. “Hopefully, in the future, we may be able to test these sensors in space. “We want to see how plants are performing in the growth chamber, and we want to relate that to the sensors and test how the signals relate to plant performance,” Rajan said. If the two researchers can predict crop performance in spacelike conditions, they hope the next step will be more funding for future experiments, possibly aboard the International Space Station. Just like most space flights, this grant is exploratory in nature. ![]() Exploratory Grant To Lead To Bigger Things She will conduct experiments in a lightweight media as a stand-in for weightlessness. While unable to replicate all growing conditions in space here on Earth, such as zero gravity, Rajan’s studies will mimic conditions like temperature and light. I can see how that stress is impacting photosynthesis, for example.” “And then, as a physiologist, I can try to relate that stress with the plant performance. “We are thinking by attaching these sensors, we can detect plant stress,” she said. This fall, Rajan is taking those sensors and determining how they are picking up the stress levels of plants using short-duration cowpeas as the test crop in growth chamber studies. Tabassum is designing unique, one-of-a-kind wireless, multivariable leaf sensors to check hormone levels in plants to detect stress. We need to know if a plant is stressed and how to immediately intervene to correct that.” Getting It Right On Earth Before Heading To Mars So, every plant in a space environment will be essential to human explorers. “Resources in space will be very limited because it can take eight months to get to Mars, for example. “If we have to grow plants in a space station, on space flights or on Mars, we need to understand how plants behave in that environment,” Rajan said. ![]() With all the advancements being made in space travel, Rajan said as a plant scientist, it is exciting to be a part of this project. Rajan is connecting with University of Texas at Tyler assistant professor of electrical engineering Shawana Tabassum, Ph.D., who is leading the NASA-funded project, Leaf Sensor Network for In Situ and Multiparametric Analysis of Crop Stressors. Nithya Rajan is used to working with hundreds of acres of plants grown on this planet.īut one of her latest projects will have her tending to the stress levels of individual plants, not in the field, but in the growth chamber, testing sensors for deployment in a spaceflight or lunar or martial habitats. Sam Craft/Texas A&M AgriLife Marketing & CommunicationsĪ Texas A&M AgriLife plant scientist is joining the space race, of a sort, by helping to understand how plants can survive in space to support human space exploration.Īs a Texas A&M AgriLife Research crop physiologist/agroecologist and professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Dr.
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