Astronauts will 3D print part of a human knee in space

J. Fingas@jonfingasNovember 3, 2022 12:19 PMIn this short article: news, gear, 3d printing, NASA, bioprinting, overall health, drugs, Worldwide Area Station, Redwire, navy, tomorrow, scienceNASA/Roscosmos/Handout through Reuters

Bioprinted overall body sections could show critical to future clinical treatments, and researchers are heading to good lengths to examination it — in a really literal feeling. NASA, Redwire and the Uniformed Expert services College of the Health and fitness Sciences Middle for Biotechnology (4DBio3) are sending a new 3D printer to the International Place Station, Redwire’s BioFabrication Facility, to bioprint a human knee meniscus in orbit and study the outcome on Earth. Ideally, this will guide to therapies for the meniscal injuries that US soldiers all-way too-usually deal with.

Redwire hopes to 3D print whole organs in area, though it characterizes this as a “prolonged-term” intention. The business is also utilizing NASA’s Superior Plant Habitat for a job to discover genes for space-friendly plants. An additional investigation will use a NASA furnace to make and demo passive cooling for electronics in low gravity.

The BFF printer will fly to the ISS aboard a offer rocket launching as soon as November 6th from NASA’s Wallops Island spaceport. The mission will carry a few more payloads.

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This isn’t really NASA’s first spaceborne 3D printer. Past year, NASA carried a Redwire printer to the ISS to show printing lunar soil. That technology could one particular working day help Moon colonists construct habitats without carrying an abundance of supplies from Earth. The bioprinter is extra quickly realistic, of class. If the exploration pans out, health professionals could swap destroyed body parts with out resorting to donations or inorganic implants.

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