Changes in operational procedures to improve spaceflight experiments in plant biology in the European Modular Cultivation System

The microgravity environment aboard orbiting spacecraft has provided a unique laboratory to explore topics in basic plant biology as well as applied research on the use of plants in bioregenerative life support systems. Our group has utilized the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to study plant growth, development, tropisms, and gene expression in a series of spaceflight experiments. The most current project performed on the ISS was termed Seedling Growth-1 (SG-1) which builds on the previous TROPI (for tropisms) experiments performed in 2006 and 2010. Major technical and operational changes in SG-1 (launched in March 2013) compared to the TROPI experiments include: (1) improvements in lighting conditions within the EMCS to optimize the environment for phototropism studies, (2) the use of infrared illumination to provide high-quality images of the seedlings, (3) modifications in procedures used in flight to improve the focus and overall quality of the images, and (4) changes in the atmospheric conditions in the EMCS incubator. In SG-1, a novel red-light-based phototropism in roots and hypocotyls of seedlings that was noted in TROPI was confirmed and now can be more precisely characterized based on the improvements in procedures. The lessons learned from sequential experiments in the TROPI hardware provide insights to other researchers developing space experiments in plant biology.     

先进的V2500系列涡轮风扇发动机

IAE国际航空发动机公司是由美国普惠公司、英国罗·罗公司、日本航空发动机公司和德国航空发动机公司这4家全球优秀的飞机发动机制造商组成,具有当今航空航天领域先进的技术。V2500系列的涡轮风扇发动机是IAE公司1983年开始研制和生产的。IAEV2500发动机目前的额定推力值为22000-33000磅,为快速增长的150座级飞机市场提供了动力装置。V2500发动机有3大主要特点:宽弦空心的风扇叶片、"浮壁"燃烧室、高效的燃油率。V2500最引人注目的特点之一就是它的风扇叶片,采用的是由罗·罗公司设计和发展的无凸台宽弦空心叶