Blue Origin Announces Crew for New Shepard’s 26th Mission; UF’s Rob Ferl Will Be on Board

Blue Origin revealed the six-person crew flying on its NS-26 mission. The crew includes Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen, and Ephraim Rabin. Karsen will become the youngest woman ever to cross the Kármán line. 

Ferl will be the first NASA-funded researcher to conduct an experiment as part of a commercial suborbital space crew. The experiment is designed to help scientists understand how plant genes react to the transition to and from microgravity.

Ferl will activate a device called a Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tube, or KFT, to “fix” or take a snapshot of the gene activity of an Arabidopsis thaliana plant inside the tube so researchers can later study it in the lab. On the ground, co-investigator Anna-Lisa Paul will track Ferl’s actions and activate identical control KFTs at the same four times during the flight.  

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