Scientist: the death of the majority of passengers, "Bion" derailed the project - Reuters

MOSCOW, May 20 – RIA Novosti. The death of most of the mammals, and all of the fish on board biosatellites “Bion” did not lead to a breakdown of the overall project – the scientists were able to rebuild the research agenda so that perform almost all the planned program, told RIA Novosti Deputy Project Manager, Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences Yevgeny Ilyin.

“This is not a failure of the experiment. Some private scientific problems because the lost animals, we have not decided, but in general, we believe that the experiment was successful. uzhali We” appetites “of each researcher, began to decrease the amount of material being transmitted to various studies, and we managed to keep the entire program, “- said Ilyin.

Then we began to consider the wounds

Passengers “Bion”: geckos, gerbils and cichlids

Russian satellite “Bion-M1″, which was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 19, Sunday morning returned to Earth from a 30-day space flight. On board were about a hundred different living organisms – Mongolian gerbils, mice, geckos, fish, freshwater crustaceans, snails, algae, bacteria, plant seeds. Furthermore, during the months satellite flight biotechnological experiments conducted, for example, growing protein crystals.

After landing descent module in the Orenburg region, it became known that a significant part of the animals died. In particular, it would not have survived all 8 mice Mongolian gerbils (meriones unguiculatus) and much of the black “line” mice (mus musculus).

“has begun contingency operation of the equipment and automation this device (where there were a gerbil) is de-energized. stops supplying oxygen, there is no longer served food, has turned off ventilation, light is switched off due to some abnormal operation of this unit. commission will be set up, which will deal out there that’s what happened. This complex equipment, automation may not work properly, “- said Ilyin.

© Photo: Central Design Bureau “Progress”

killed all of the Mongolian gerbil, who were on biosatellite “Bion”

Of the 45 “genetically pure” mice S57black / 6 before landing only 16 animals survived. Mice were in flight at three in the cells. Five cells were combined into one unit.

“One device is completely shut down immediately, 15 mice were killed – has turned off the system supply of food. And in the other remaining instruments were failures in individual cells of, so, too, there was a partial loss of animals. All this is because of technical problems, not because there weightlessness affects them adversely, “- said Ilyin.

He noted that the natural death of animals due to different underlying pathologies allowed and provided for in this experiment, but it should not significantly exceed 5%.

In addition, in-flight killing all cichlid fish (Oreochromis mosambicus), who went into space in a special aquarium in the experiment “Omegahab” prepared by German scientists, led by Dr. Reinhard Hilbig (Reinhard Hilbig) from the University of Hohenheim.

“Fish were also killed, the device has failed, equipment failure, too. Russian side’s not my fault, it was a German aquarium, he also passed out,” – said Ilyin.

However, all 15 geckos (Chondrodactylus turneri), snails, microorganisms surviving the flight.

Express redrawing

© Photo: Central Design Bureau” Progress “

“Bion-M1″ in the assembly shop

Scientists have compiled several options for post-flight research program with the expectation of a different number of surviving animals.

“Due to internal rearrangements, the redistribution of biological material, we are the number of mice in this almost fully implemented the program, which was designed for 45 mice,” – said the scientist.

He explained that the project involves some 20 institutions, and they all had to get the organs and tissues for research at the cellular and molecular level. “We began to divide into parts, do not give all the heart, and part of the heart, some of the bones, depending on the number of” consumers “and so managed to save the program,” – he said.

According to him, now scientists have just started a lot of research that could last months and years. “This is a great time-consuming job that will allow us to answer questions about how weightlessness affects the cellular level, the molecular level, in some authorities, other bodies to carry out a comparative study”, – concluded the scientist.