Kristie CerutiStop by booths 4508/4509, where Denterprise International Inc. (DII), a Florida-based manufacturer of dental imaging products will share details of their recent work with NASA.
Denterprise’s new Xray2Go-Mini Handheld X-ray generator and its DuraRay Digital sensors have been chosen as part of a multi-year study on bone healing in space.
This potentially life enhancing program is being sponsored by the University of Indiana, in cooperation with NASA, and the Department of Defense. Their technology will be available for viewing at the Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting Feb 25-27, at the Denterprise booths.
The mission to resupply of the International Space Station (ISS) is a landmark moment; the first commercial launch from that spot also sent astronauts to the moon.
Launch Complex 39A has certainly seen plenty of milestones over the decades, from the launch of the Saturn V rocket and Apollo missions to the shuttle program takeoffs. But it saw another first on Sunday when a Falcon 9 rocket launched from the pad and returned to land nearby just a few minutes later.
Denterprise staff members, according to a recent statement issued by the company, have been working closely with the University of Indiana ground team and ISS astronauts as to the imaging software and X-ray products that will be used during the study in space.
They were invited to watch the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from a special mission control center near launch pad 39A at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Launch Station.
Spacex building with Launch pad 39 at Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center with blue cloudy sky background, August, 2015.
In spaceflight, bone loss rates of up to 2% per month are typical, and can increase to an astronomical 30% over a year’s stay in space. While numerous studies have been conducted examining bone loss in spaceflight, few studies have focused on fracture healing and bone regeneration in spaceflight. (Those that do have only examined relatively short-term bone healing of 5 or 14 days.)
Denterprise shares potential outcomes from this research and their next adventure in space – studying bone cells as they relate to:
- Longterm spaceflight.
- Healing severely injured limbs.
- Bone cell preservation.
View a video that details the launch and successful landing on the 1st stage rocket back at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad: https://youtu.be/_ETyyEwwTUk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ETyyEwwTUk
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft into low-Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:43 a.m. EST from Launch Complex 40 at the Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral.
