Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: All experiments in Photon satellite successfully completed but for one with geckos

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 3, 2014 10:24:39 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: All experiments in Photon satellite successfully completed but for one with geckos

All experiments in Photon satellite successfully completed but for one with geckos

September 03, 0:40 UTC+4
Geckos died due to low-temperature-caused decrease in metabolic rates entailing inability to digest food

© ITAR-TASS/Ludmila Pahomova
MOSCOW, September 02. /ITAR-TASS/. All experiments aboard Russia's Photon-M satellite that landed on Monday were completed successfully but for the one with geckos, Vladimir Sychev, a deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medico-Biological Problems, told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.
"We had more than 20 experiments. All were successful, except the one with geckos. Since all the planned experiments aboard the Photon were completed, we decided to land the spacecraft earlier than scheduled - on September 1, instead of September 15," he said, adding that experiments with fruit flies and Bioelectricity, Meteor and some other experiments were expected to yield very important results.
The Photon-M4 satellite was launched on July 19, 2014 from the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft carried specimens for research of the biological effects of zero gravity and cosmic radiation. The specimens included geckos, silkworm eggs, dried seeds, fruit flies, and mushrooms, and 22 sets of research equipment. Several hours after the blastoff, the control communication with Photon-M was disrupted, although the spacecraft continued to transmit telemetric information. It took seven days to restore communication with the spacecraft. The Institute of Medico-Biological Problems said after the control loss incident that it did not affect in any way the onboard life support system and the programme of automatic experiments.
The Photon re-entry capsule safely landed on September 1 in Russia's Orenburg region. All the geckos aboard it died although fruit flies and microorganisms survived. It was reported earlier that Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) would set up a special commission to probe into the death of the geckos.
Earlier on Tuesday, Sychev said the geckos aboard the satellite had died due to low-temperature-caused decrease in metabolic rates entailing inability to digest food. He said the temperature factor of the geckos' death was unquestionable but the reptiles had not get frozen to death. "Geckos cannot get frozen to death, they are cold-blooded animals. But their digestion depends much on air temperature. If it is not high enough, food is not digested," he said.
Temperature aboard the satellite dropped on August 8 but it is next to impossible to say when exactly the geckos died, since video recording had stopped on August 5, he said, adding however that when planning the Photon programme, specialists had feared overheating. "Taking these consideration into account, the system of thermoregulation was somewhat adjusted. It was planned that temperatures inside the spacecraft would vary in a range from 20 to 26 degrees centigrade, but at some point the temperature dropped down to 15 degress," Sychev noted.

Geckos in Russia's Photon satellite die due to decreased metabolism
September 02, 19:17 UTC+4
Vladimir Sychev, a deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medico-Biological Problems, says the temperature factor of the geckos' death was unquestionable
© ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, September 02. /ITAR-TASS/. Geckos aboard Russia's Photon satellite that landed on Monday had died due to low-temperature-caused decrease in metabolic rates entailing inability to digest food, Vladimir Sychev, a deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medico-Biological Problems, told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.
He said the temperature factor of the geckos' death was unquestionable but the reptiles had not get frozen to death. "Geckos cannot get frozen to death, they are cold-blooded animals. But their digestion depends much on air temperature. If it is not high enough, food is not digested," he said.
Temperature aboard the satellite dropped on August 8 but it is next to impossible to say when exactly the geckos died, since video recording had stopped on August 5, he said, adding however that when planning the Photon program, specialists had feared overheating. "Taking these considerations into account, the system of thermoregulation was somewhat adjusted. It was planned that temperatures inside the spacecraft would vary in a range from 20 to 26 degrees Celsius, but at some point the temperature dropped down to 15 degress," Sychev noted.
The Photon-M4 satellite was launched on July 19, 2014 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft carried specimens for research of the biological effects of zero gravity and cosmic radiation. The specimens included geckos, silkworm eggs, dried seeds, fruit flies, and mushrooms, and 22 sets of research equipment. Several hours after the blastoff, the control communication with Photon-M was disrupted, although the spacecraft continued to transmit telemetric information. It took seven days to restore communication with the spacecraft. The Institute of Medico-Biological Problems said after the control loss incident that it did not affect in any way the onboard life support system and the programme of automatic experiments.
The Photon re-entry capsule safely landed on September 1 in Russia's Orenburg region. All the geckos aboard it died although fruit flies and microorganisms survived.

© Copyright 2014 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved.

Russia's Space Geckos Die Due to Technical Glitch Two Days Before Landing
The five geckos onboard Russia's Photon-M4 satellite died simultaneously two days before landing because of a technical malfunction
© Photo Oleg Voloshin / Institute of Biomedical Problems
20:30 02/09/2014

MOSCOW, September 2 (RIA Novosti) - The five geckos onboard Russia's Foton-M4 satellite died simultaneously two days before landing because of a technical malfunction, the head of the experiment, Sergei Savelyev, told RIA Novosti Tuesday.
"The autopsy revealed that the deaths were caused by technical issues and are related to the malfunction of one of the biosatellite's systems," said Savelyev, researcher at the Institute of Human Morphology and head of the experiment.
"Autopsies of three of the five [geckos] have been conducted, and the remaining two will be examined today. We can already confidently conclude that the death of all geckos happened almost simultaneously. The poor guys died within a few hours. Their bodies were not mummified, as some have reported. Moreover, their organs show that the death occurred no more than two days ago," Savelyev explained.
Savelyev denied reports saying the geckos died from hypothermia, as the lizards were unlikely to have had a lengthy cool-down.
"There was apparently a quick and short synchronous effect on all animals... Some technical glitch in the life-support system," he said, stressing that it was necessary to collect and examine the satellite's data in order to determine the exact problem.
The biosatellite carrying lizards and fruit flies was launched into space by Russian scientists on July 19 to explore how space conditions impact fertility. The satellite landed as planned in Russia's Orenburg region on Monday. While the insects survived and were able to breed, the geckos, four females and one male, arrived dead.

© 2014 RIA Novosti