HE Yousuf Hamad AlShaibani, Director General of MBRSC.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) has launched the Science in Space competition, in collaboration with NanoRacks LLC. This initiative is a part of the UAE Astronaut Programme, and will allow schools to participate in conducting scientific experiments to study the impact of microgravity.
HE Yousuf Hamad AlShaibani, Director General of MBRSC, said: The mission of the first Emirati astronaut to ISS will be a historic event for the UAE’s space industry, and for the first time, students have the opportunity to learn about the experiments that will be a part of the astronaut’s mission and conduct them on-ground.
AlMarri highlighted that the competition is open to students, (from fifth grade), from public and private schools, across the UAE. Following the selection of the schools, MBRSC will organise a workshop for students to conduct their experiments and train them to use test tubes and petri dishes, supplied by the commercial space company NanoRacks. The studies will be conducted by the first Emirati astronaut onboard the ISS, and the results of the two environments will later be compared. The experiments include the effect of microgravity on cell growth, microorganisms, genes, grass seed germination rates, fungi and algae, the effect of antibiotics on bacteria, basic chemical reactions in space, and other physical, biological and chemical experiments.