7th Astroskin Space Payload to Launch with SpaceX Mission CRS-21

December 01, 2020

Hexoskin is set to launch its 7th Astroskin payload in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency this week aboard a SpaceX rocket.

CRS-21 is the first launch of phase 2 of SpaceX's Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) contract. The mission will use the Cargo version of the Dragon 2 spacecraft on top of a Falcon 9 rocket launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This mission is planned to use Booster B1058.4 (4th flight for booster B1058). This recent booster is the one that carried NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station on May 30th, 2020, the first US rocket carrying astronauts since Space Shuttle Atlantis in July 2011.

Microgravity affects fluid movements in the body and heat transmission (in the absence of convection movement in microgravity). This triggers physiological phenomena impossible to monitor on the ground and tests our models of human physiology. The Astroskin Bio-Monitor system gives scientists a tool to observe these phenomena in space. It also prepares us to maintain crew health during long space missions beyond low earth orbit (LEO), to the Moon and Mars.

Astronauts from 3 different space agencies (NASA, CSA, ESA) have used the Astroskin system aboard the International Space Station since January 2019.

Here's a list of space launches that carried Astroskin payloads:

1. SpaceX CRS-16 (December 5th, 2018)
2. Cygnus NG-11 (April 17th, 2019)
3. SpaceX CRS-18 (July 25th, 2019)
4. SpaceX CRS-19 (December 5th, 2019
5. SpaceX CRS-20 (March 7th, 2020)
6. Cygnus NG-14 (October 3rd, 2020)
7. SpaceX CRS-21 (December 6th, 2020)

Information about Astroskin missions aboard the ISS: