Before four Artemis II astronauts strapped into their Orion capsule to soar toward the moon, a tiny bit of each of them was already on board.
Incubated in a small triangular container stowed on the spacecraft just before launch were four USB-size “avatars,” which rode along with the history-making moon mission. But in many ways, their journey is just beginning, News.Az reports, citing CNN.
Known as organ chips, the avatar crewmates are made with bone marrow tissue derived from cells donated by their full-size counterparts — NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — and researchers believe the experiment could soon unlock unprecedented insights about the effects of space on human health.
The AVATAR, or A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response, study essentially allows scientists to simulate what happens to astronauts’ organs in deep space.
It’s one of several experiments on Orion that can evaluate how astronauts respond to the five hazards of spaceflight — and lay the groundwork for future missions.
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