‘Out of this world’ - DCU student returns from NASA
21 December 2009

Three Irish students have just returned to Ireland after successfully launching a payload into space on Space Shuttle Atlantis.

The shuttle rendezvoused with the International Space Station, which is currently orbiting the earth, on Friday the 20th of November 2009. The space station currently holds six astronauts who are carrying out a range of experiments. The is now on board the space station and will stay there for the next 10 years performing valuable experiments in the fields of biology, medicine and genetics.

“It was a great achievement for us to help with the preparation of the payload and to see it launch was even more spectacular” , said James Carton, PhD student in mechanical and manufacturing engineering at DCU.

James, along with David Clarke, DCU graduate, and Brian Kelly of UCD spent six months last year in NASA, setting up the Advanced Biological Research System (ABRS) which was launched into space. This internship was organised by the higher education section of FÁS.

In this particular space mission, willow plants have been brought into space in a specially-designed unit that will monitor the growth patterns of wood in gravity. If it can be shown that trees and wood grown in microgravity produce timber that has evenly-distributed strength throughout, it could have enormous implications for the construction and paper industries.

James’s role was to ensure that the plant units were constructed to the highest safety standards and that embedded cameras and sensors in the plant units were securely installed. The astronauts will take weekly samples of the plants, freeze-dry them, store them, and at the end of the three-month period, bring the samples back to earth.

According to James, ‘My internship at Kennedy Space Centre has been ‘out of this world’ on many levels. I have seen and done things that most young engineers only ever dream of. This internship has given me a unique insight into the field of aerospace engineering, which currently is very rare in Ireland. To my knowledge we are one of the first Irish engineers to work directly on a NASA payload. Working on the ABRS project has given me world class experience in the areas of project design and space systems engineering while at the same time developing my engineering skills”.

James’s supervisor Dr Abdul Olabi said, “There are very stringent design, testing and verifications that payloads, such as ABRS, must meet. The Irish engineers was part of the engineering team responsible for ensuring that these standards were met. The work at NASA complements James’s work being completed at DCU”.