BioSentinel will do the world’s first biology experiment in deep space, taking yeast cells into orbit around the Sun to study how they are affected by space radiation. This will be the furthest we have taken living organisms into space than ever before.
BioSentinel’s microfluidics card, designed at NASA Ames, will be used to study the impact of interplanetary space radiation on yeast. Once in orbit, the growth and metabolic activity of the yeast will be measured using a 3-color LED detection system and a metabolic indicator dye. Here, pink wells contain actively growing yeast cells that have reduced the metabolic dye from blue to pink in color.