GREENVILLE, Ind. (WDRB) -- Engineers with Greenville's Techshot expect this weekend to be the beginning of a revolution in health care.
NASA is launching its SpaceX CRS-18 cargo mission at 7:30 p.m. Sunday from Cape Canaveral’s Kennedy Space Center, and Techshot will have equipment on board that could help save countless human lives.
“It's just an incredible experience,” Techshot Program Manager Andy Kurk said. “There is all that excitement like the birth of a child. Then, it finally dawns on you and settles in, ‘Wow, I’ve got a lot of work to do.'"
Kurk and his team have been working on this launch for years.
“All this work I've been doing for four years finally culminates into this moment,” Kurk said.
The rocket will carry the 3D BioFabrication Facility, or BFF, to the International Space Station.
The BFF if a 3D printer that will eventually print human organs using stem cells. The process has to happen in space, because gravity on earth would destroy the shape of the organs.
“The bio inks we print with are very soft. They're like a gel,” Kurk said. "In micro gravity, you don't have to worry about that."
People who need an organ transplant today rely on a matching donor and anti-rejection drugs. Organs can be tailor-made using stem cells, which would end the need for a donor and expensive drugs.
Engineers at Techshot in southern Indiana will walk the astronauts through the process step by step. They'll first make heart patches and eventually grow full organs, although it could take a decade for a clinical trial.
The BFF will stay on the International Space Station for a few months until it comes back to Earth.
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