It's time to start thinking about preparing the experiment for flight. We are ready! There has been hours of discussion, dozens and dozens of hours researching, we have practiced loading the FME's, and practiced for this over and over. I can't even begin to guess how many hundreds of hours have gone into this project or how dedicated the students have been to be able to devote the amount of time they have to get this far.
Our school district has devoted an incredible amount of resources towards this project and it could never have been accomplished without their support. In an era when schools have to face extreme budget cuts and find themselves having to do away with programs, our district is finding ways to support programs that benefit students. So much dedication to this, students, teachers, school district, even families, we won't let you down!
We are only waiting for newly designed FME's to arrive so we can begin. As soon as they arrive we will prepare them so that one of the FME's can be sent to NanoRacks and NASA in order to be prepared for launch. Although the launch date isn't final our experiment needs to arrive by Aug. 31st.
Below is a very technical explanation of how the FME works (and a few pictures too).
A Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME) mini-lab. Shown is a Type 3 FME,
containing 3 separate volumes of fluids and/or solids.
1. Introduction to the FME Mini-LabThe FME is a very simple mini-laboratory designed to carry small samples of fluids and solids—the Experiment Samples—and provides for the samples to be mixed at an appropriate time in orbit. This allows you to explore the effects of microgravity on a physical, chemical, or biological system contained in the mini-lab. Each mini-lab is a cylindrical tube 6.75 inches long (17.1 cm), with an outer diameter of 0.5 inches (1.3 cm). It can contain one, two, or three separate volumes of fluids and/or solids. You can think of the FME as one, two, or three small test tubes that can be mixed in orbit. Figure 1 provides a graphic showing the design of an FME which contains 3 separate volumes.
Each flight experiment for SSEP Mission 2 to ISS must be designed for operation in a FME. The SSEP payload to the International Space Station will contain one FME for each flight experiment. The FMEs will be placed in a Payload Box which can contain up to 24 FMEs (see Figure 2). SSEP flight experiments will share the Payload Box with flight experiments from professional researchers in academia, industry, and government. NanoRacks has the ability to fly multiple Payload Boxes to accommodate a payload of more than 24 FMEs. Once in orbit, the Payload Box is placed in a rack on Kibo—the Japanese Experiment module (JEM) on ISS.
2. Operating the FME Mini-Lab
A FME Payload Box containing up to 24 FMEs.
There are three types of FMEs depending on how many different ‘test tubes’ your experiment will need—
Type 1 FME: contains
only 1 experiment sample in the Main Volume, with no inserted glass
ampoules. An experiment using a Type 1 FME by definition requires no
mixing.
Type 2 FME: contains 2 experiment samples, one in the Main Volume and a second in a Long Ampoule. Figure 3 provides a graphic of a Type 2 FME.
Type 3 FME: contains 3 experiment samples, one in the Main Volume and two additional samples in two Short Ampoules—Ampoule A and Ampoule B. Figure 1 provides a graphic of a Type 3 FME.
4. Mixing the Experiment Samples in the FME Once in Orbit, and Astronaut Handling
To mix samples in the FME, the glass ampoule is cracked open by flexing the FME like you would activate a glow stick. Each FME is self-contained, allowing each student flight experiment team to define when mixing is to take place for their experiment, which can require up to two interventions by an ISS crew member in the case of a Type 3 FME containing two glass ampoules.
FME Type 3
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