MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th May, 2020) Russia plans to bring an incubator with quail eggs to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021 to study the development of embryos, Vladimir Sychev, deputy director of science at the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) of the Russian academy of Sciences, told Sputnik.
"The equipment for studying embryogenesis has been created. It includes a centrifuge, so the eggs will be displayed both in artificial gravity and in zero gravity," Sychev explained.
He added that the incubator with quail eggs should be delivered to the ISS next year.
"It was planned to bring the equipment to the ISS this year, but now it has been postponed until next year, because it will coincide with the launch of Russia's new 'Nauka' module," Sychev told Sputnik.
The launch of Russia's "Nauka" ("Science") multipurpose laboratory module to the ISS is scheduled for the second quarter of 2021, a space industry source told Sputnik this month. This information has been confirmed by Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Experiments with quails and quail eggs have already been conducted in space several times. In 1990, the first quail hatched at the Mir space station. In 1999 quail chicks born in space were successfully brought back to Earth.
