Space X Sends a Supercomputer into Orbit

The company of billionaire Elon Musk SpaceX will send a cargo ship without crew to the International Space Station (ISS). A supercomputer will be brought into the orbit to help astronauts on missions in the open space. Reports iNews. 

This is the 12th official mission of SpaceX to ISS, which has a deal with NASA for USD 1.6 billion and must provide supplies of station astronauts within 20 flights. 

The Dragon ship is also loaded with 2900kg of supplies, including a supercomputer called The Spaceborne Computer, produced by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). The goal is to test the machine in the harsh cosmic conditions for a period of one year - the approximate time that astronauts will take to Mars. Because in such a mission the crew will have to travel very long distances, communications are supposed to be with considerable delay. The messages from Mars to Earth are expected to be delayed by 4 to 24 minutes depending on the distance between the planets, the European Space Agency said. "Such a delay in communications will make any fieldwork particularly difficult and potentially dangerous if astronauts encounter any of the scenarios critical to their mission that they can not solve on their own," said HPE Vice President Alan Andréoli.

The supercomputer on board the Dragon must determine if such a machine could work without problems on a possible trip for a longer distance in the open space. A further experiment will be carried out on the ship to look at new ways to fight Parkinson's disease. Without the impact of gravity, protein crystals can grow more and scientists hope they can use this environment to better understand the role of an important protein in the development of the disease. So far, the influence of the protein, known as LRRK2, has been difficult to study on Earth.

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