Explainer / MicroAge mission

Scientists at the University of Liverpool, funded by the UK Space Agency, launched MicroAge mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. 

The UK Space Agency has provided £1.2 million in funding to the University of Liverpool for the MicroAge experiment.

As part of the mission, 24 muscle cell containers are sent to the International Space Station.

What is MicroAge mission?

• This new experiment takes human muscle cells, the size of a grain of rice, that are grown in a lab and carefully put into small 3D-printed holders the size of a pencil sharpener.

• Once in space, these will be electrically stimulated to induce contractions in the muscle tissue, and the scientists will look closely to see what happens.

What is the objective of this mission?

• It is well known that our muscles lose mass and strength as we age. This can have a profound effect on the ability to carry out everyday tasks and causes a range of problems, including an increased risk of falling and longer recovery times from injuries.

• Physical frailty is a major factor affecting the ability of individuals to maintain independence and is primarily due to age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function (known as sarcopenia).

• When astronauts spend time in space, without the effects of gravity, their muscles get weaker, just as they do in older age, before recovering when they return to Earth. By studying what happens to muscle tissue in space, the team can compare the findings to what happens on Earth.

• A hypothesis is that an analogous failure of muscle adaptations to contractile activity occur in both ageing and in muscle exposed to microgravity and that by studying the way that muscle responds to repeated contractions in microgravity scientists will gain further understanding of the way that muscle fails to respond to exercise in older people and in astronauts in space.

• This will help solve the puzzle of why muscles get weaker as we age and look at ways to prevent it.

• The experiment will return to Earth in January 2022 for further analysis.

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