Date: Thursday 30 September 2021
Title: Project Maleth - Deorbit burn, and re-entry to Earth
Time: 14:45
Venue: Follow live via NASA stream
The 23rd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission returns samples from various scientific experiments that were held on the International Space Station.
Back on Earth, and in Malta biomedical scientists led by Professor Joseph Borg from the Dept. of Applied Biomedical Science will now anticipate quick access to their experiments for additional observations and analyses on the microbiome samples from diabetic foot ulcers obtained from Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients.
The study saw for the very first time in our Maltese history a joint collaboration between Academia; medical and other staff from the National Hospital facilitated by Professor Kevin Cassar and his team, as well as biomedical scientists Ms Christine Gatt and Dr Graziella Zahra from the Pathology Department; Government, and the private sector.
The SpaceOMIX first mission under the Maleth program was provided with unique access to patient material that could be analysed not just using conventional tools located at the University of Malta and Mater Dei but also state-of-the-art facilities run by Space Applications Services on board their ICE Cubes facility inside Europe’s Columbus module of the International Space Station.
Professor Borg and Mr Wilfred Kenely (CEO RIDT Malta) will be interviewed tomorrow, Thursday on Campus FM at 10:15am. The same day that dragon will now undock from the space station - Thursday 30 September and is scheduled for splashdown near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida hours later. The live undocking process can be watched online.
Read more about Project Maleth.
Project Maleth is funded by the Ministry for Foreign and European Affairs of Malta, biotech company Evolve Ltd and Arkafort and supported by the Ministry for Research, Innovation and post COVID19 strategy. This collaboration was initiated and facilitated by the RIDT at the University of Malta. Members of the general public may further support this project by following the Zaar platform and get a chance of visiting up close the biocube itself upon its return On Campus, as well as other rewards.