Space Coast students to send experiment to ISS

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — A group of Pinecrest Academy Space Coast middle schoolers came up with an experiment that could one day help astronauts during space travel.

And the key is a component in horseshoe crab blood that can detect the presence of harmful bacterial endotoxins.

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The self-described “Bacteria Boys,” hope their experiment, which is launching to the International Space Station, will determine if the blood of the Atlantic horseshoe crab can detect bacterial contamination in microgravity the same way it does on earth.

The experiment was selected out of thousands as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.

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SSEP is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, in partnership with the ISS National Lab.

Pinecrest Academy Space Coast team members Liam Hauser, Connor Santore, Eric Distasi, Evan Ireland, and Luke Costa will be at the Kennedy Space Center for SpaceX’s 29th Resupply mission to the ISS.

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Right now, the mission is scheduled to lift off no earlier than November 9, 2023, at 8:28 pm.

“I felt so proud of them because I know the perseverance and the hard work and the effort that these students have put into this project. And I’m just so proud of them. They realize that this is a life changing opportunity for them,” said Pinecrest Academy Space Coast STEM Director, Consuelo Praetorius.

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