Avian Development Facility
“When STS-108 landed on Dec. 17, 2001 after a 12-day mission, it provided
the successful culmination of a six-year effort between Ames and SHOT, Inc. to
build the Avian Development Facility (ADF),” says Norman Donnelly, ADF hardware
lead. Originating as a Phase 1 Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) contract,
the ADF progressed from the concept stage to the prototype stage to the flight
unit that was launched on Dec. 5, 2001 as one of the habitats under development
by the Ames Space Station Biological Research Program (SSBRP). Randy Berthold,
acting chief of the Science Payloads Operations Branch, managed the payload team
for the ADF.
Above: One of two ADF carousels, each of which feature
18 sample containers with a volume of approximately 40 ml. During space missions,
one carousel rotates at 77.3 RPMs to simulate a 1g gravity field. The other carousel
remains motionless to provide a microgravity environment for the specimens inside.
Besides eggs, the ADF can carry aloft, fish, plants, insects or cells in its sample
containers. Photo courtesy SHOT®.
The evolution of the ADF was not an easy process. It went from being a space
shuttle Ames’ hardware meets performance specifications flight candidate
to a space station candidate to its present configuration as a space station sortie
payload, within a three-year period. A sortie payload is defined as an ISSP-sponsored
payload that is manifested in the orbiter middeck, operated in the orbiter middeck
and returned to Earth on the same flight.
The demands placed on the developer in order to respond to these major changes
were challenging, to say the least. It is to SHOT’s credit that that they
met all the demands with a successful flight. 
The ADF is a fully automated egg incubator capable of housing 36 Japanese quail
eggs. The original purpose of the flight was to evaluate the ability of the unit
to support the quail embryo development in microgravity. This was amended to also
support the research objectives of two principal investigators, focusing on vestibular
and skeletal systems by initiating and preserving embryo development in weightlessness.
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Each egg was placed in an individual holder residing on one of two centrifuges
that served to provide microgravity or 1-g conditions (77 rpm) under the same
controlled environment. Pre-programmed controls regulated the temperature, humidity,
carbon dioxide and oxygen levels. An automated fixation system was set to operate
at time intervals determined by the principal investigators. Prior to launch the
eggs were kept chilled to inhibit development until reaching orbit. Initiation
of incubation was then started and the unit operated autonomously until leaving
orbit.
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Above: The avian hatchling habitat with exterior panels
removed. Photo courtesy SHOT®.
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Preliminary results indicate that the ADF achieved the goal of meeting the
performance specifications. Both Investigators and their staffs are currently
analyzing the flight embryos as well as the control embryos that were maintained
in facilities at the Kennedy Space Center during the mission. Future activity
may include a ground -based control study to isolate the effects of an 18-hour
EVA that was conducted from the shuttle during the mission.
By Robert Yee, NASA Ames Research Center, Astrogram May 2002
For a printable PDF version of this research visit page 16 of http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/astrogram/2002_astrograms/05_02Astrogram.pdf
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