GeneSat-1: Small Satellite Tackles Big Biology Questions

As a potential forerunner to follow-on technology modules, GeneSat-1’s goal is to help devise protocols for the study of genetic changes arising from the unique space environment. Back here on Earth, advances in therapeutics have come from delving into biological mechanisms and pathways at the molecular level.

Similarly, skill in thwarting bone density loss, muscle atrophy, and a stressed immune system—debilitating effects observed on long-duration space missions—could benefit from GeneSat-1 and future gene/protein array analyzers flown in space.

Validating the GeneSat-1 in Earth orbit could foster its use to study biological changes in microorganisms and other specimens on the Moon and elsewhere in deep space. Data results are transmitted to Earth, requiring no specimen return.

Just as there have been advancements in small satellite technology, a revolution in the biological and medical sciences has been underway over the past 15-20 years, Bruce Yost, deputy project manager of the GeneSat-1 work for Defouw Engineering at NASA Ames, said. "You don’t need large amounts of tissue or samples to probe and understand what it is you are trying to determine," he told the small satellite meeting here.

These two developments – small satellites and biological research—have "intersected quite nicely," Yost said.