Israel launched on Wednesday night a nano-satellite, Dido III, manufactured by the Israeli SpacePharma company and joined by Israel’s Sheba Medical Center, making history as one of the world’s first hospitals to launch a medical experiment in space.
This special project, a collaboration between the Israeli Space Agency in the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Italian Space Agency, together with the development of SpacePharma a company focused on using microgravity for research and development, is a significant breakthrough not only in the field of civilian space but also in the field of medicine.
Sheba will test on this space mission its theory that microgravity in space reduces antibiotic resistance acquisition, that will hopefully help solve the worsening global problem of bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
The satellite, carrying a tiny laboratory in which four medical scientific experiments to test drug resistance will be conducted under conditions of micro-gravity, all in a completely autonomous manner, was launched by Arianespace on the Flight VV16 mission with Vega launcher’s “ride-share” configuration, the Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) from the Spaceport in French Guiana and reached its destination in space around 4:51 on Thursday morning.
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