In December 2023, 48 Japanese quail eggs will be sent to the International Space Station. Tamara Guryeva, a lead researcher at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that Cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov will launch an experiment to examine the possibility of bird survival in microgravity conditions.
Currently, researchers are working on an experiment with it at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Yu.A. Gagarin. The experiment was complex, Gurieva noted: On the ISS it will be necessary to put the eggs in a box and fix them – a rather difficult task that requires jewelry work.
Equipment for this – an incubator with containers for fixing eggs and a centrifuge for creating artificial gravity – will be shipped in advance in September. During the experiment, the researchers plan to study the embryonic development of two groups of Japanese quail under microgravity and artificial gravity created by the equipment on the ISS. The data obtained will help develop life support systems for crews of deep space flights.
Guryeva recalled that similar experiments with quail eggs were conducted at the Mir station in the 1990s. At first, the chicks could not adapt to the conditions of weightlessness – they could not eat without feeling the support and died. However, in an experiment conducted in 1999, it was possible to produce healthy quails that were fed normally and lived in the station for three days with the help of a special centrifuge.
Source: Ferra
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