On Monday an exciting mission will be launched into space. The cargo will contain lasers, old-fashioned sextans, and E. coli bacteria, creating a temperature 10 billion times colder than the vacuum of space. These are science experiments that will be launched Monday Morning at 4:39 a.m. EDT from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.
They will be launched on the commercial spaceflight company Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket. The spaceship will have 3,350 of supplies, food, clothing, equipment and many others. The mission is known as 0A-9. The name of the spacecraft is named the S.S. J. R. Thompson after J.R. Thompson.
You will be able to see the launch if you are on the U.S. East Coast, but you can also watch it online, as it will be live at Space.com thanks to NASA TV.
Experiments aboard the craft
The Cold Atom Laboratory will send an experiment in space. This laboratory is, in fact, a research facility for physics where scientists will analyze the lowest temperatures that can be reached in a lab. Additionally, researchers study how these temperatures impact atomic interactions.
The Cold Atom Laboratory will send an experimental physics package that comes with a compartment that reassembles an ice chest. The interior of this will reach a temperature that is 10 billion times colder than the vacuum of space. The scientists will slow down atoms using laser cooling techniques. Then they will study these atom clouds and how they act in the microgravity environment.
Unusually, a handheld sextant will also be on the spacecraft. The instrument is used to measure the angular distance between two objects. This tool has been around for numerous years, and it was used even in the past by sailors out at sea. In this case, handheld sextants will be used for emergency navigation.
