University of Florida To Launch Space Mission Institute With $2.5 Million in Strategic Funding
Faculty at the University of Florida are joining forces to form the UF Space Mission Institute, with $2.5 million in funding from UF President Ben Sasse. The Institute will be managed by UF Research and will be a hub in which scientists and scholars from across UF can collaborate, conduct research, and innovate.
The institute will work to enhance existing relationships with Space Florida and the Space Life Sciences Laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center, and seek new partnerships with the International Space Station National Laboratory. The institute will also work to leverage UF’s proximity to the growing commercial space ecosystem in Florida. Throughout the next five years, the total economic impact of the commercial space industry in Florida is expected to be more than $5.3 billion.
UF Plant Experiment Flies on Virgin Galactic Spaceship
UF project, funded by NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program, was the only science experiment on the Virgin Galactic mission, meant to study the impact the transition to and from zero gravity has on gene expression in cells, and, more broadly, to develop protocols for “human-tended” suborbital flights.
UF Researchers Aim to One Day Farm on Mars
UF researchers are playing a part in the future of space agriculture. One of the co-directors of the UF Space Plants Lab said all the research they do has one main goal, to one day grow plants on Mars.
With New Shepard Launch, Space Researchers Become Space Customers
The University of Florida is helping to launch a new era in space research with a plant experiment aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket that blasted off from the company’s West Texas site. Rob Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul have been studying how plants respond to stressful environments for decades, placing their genetically engineered mustard plants […]