Thank you Astronaut Nicole Mann for the awesome shot 📸 of the ISSET module floating in the cupola of the International Space Station 🤩

The Antares rocket successfully launched on 7th November. But six hours into the flight, NASA announced that when the capsule carrying the ISSET experiments separated from the rocket to continue its journey to the ISS, it was only able to extend one of its two solar arrays because it had been hit by debris at launch. A solar array is a collection of multiple solar panels that generate electricity as a system. The solar arrays are used to power the spacecraft.

NASA assessed the situation and determined that the spacecraft had sufficient power to reach the ISS but fridges storing some experiments had to be turned off to ensure it had enough power. As far as we know, our experiments weren't affected by the limited electrical power and NG-18 successfully arrived at the ISS on 9th November.

To some this may look like failure, we don’t see it that way! We were able to take learn some valuable lessons, just not to do with the original hypothesis. We sent more worms on the SpaceX-26 mission 2 weeks later and had enough time to remedy the water issue. Hopeful these brave ‘wormanauts’ enjoy their time on board the ISS, before returning to Earth in January.