SpaceX Delivers Christmas Presents, Brand New Scientific Supplies To ISS

SpaceX's 24th commercial resupply mission has delivered Christmas presents for the hardworking astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The cargo even included a new batch of interesting scientific supplies.

The SpaceX Cargo Dragon was launched as part of the resupply mission at 5.07 a.m. ET Tuesday, NASA noted in a news release. The spacecraft docked to the "space-facing side" of the ISS' Harmony module at 3.41 a.m. ET Wednesday. It was ahead of the scheduled 4.30 a.m. docking, according to Space.com.

Since the resupply mission took place a few days before Christmas, NASA packed some special items for the astronauts aboard the station, the outlet noted.

"I won't get in front of Santa Claus and tell you what's going to be sent up, but we are going to have some gifts for the crew," Joel Montalbano, NASA's space station program manager, said. "We're also going to fly some special foods for Christmas dinner. So you can imagine turkey, green beans, we have some fish and some seafood that's smoked. We also have everybody's favorite, fruitcake."

The 6,500 pounds of cargo also included more scientific supplies for the ISS. Among them was a rather interesting project from the German Aerospace Center. Called the Bioprint FirstAid, it's a "handheld bioprinter" that uses a patient's skin cells to make a patch that can be used to cover a wound. It essentially creates a 3D-printed "Band-Aid" that's made of human skin cells. NASA says this can help "accelerate the healing process."

The cargo also included NASA and Procter & Gamble's Tide Infinity, a "fully degradable detergent" specially created for space. So far, laundry has been a bit of a hurdle during spaceflight, with astronauts having to wear the same clothes until they have to get rid of them and get new sets that are delivered through resupply missions. With plans to go to the moon and Mars, astronauts being able to do laundry in space instead of having to toss out their clothes could help lessen the new clothes that have to be included in resupply missions.

"Once you start having extended trips out in space, laundry is a must-have," Mark Sivik, senior director and research fellow at Proctor and Gamble, told Space.com. "We looked at what it would take for a crew of four to do laundry and we minimized that."

The cargo also included experiments that help improve the delivery of cancer drugs, assess the risk of space-induced changes in immune function and even science projects from students and citizen scientists.

"These are just a few of the hundreds of investigations currently being conducted aboard the orbiting laboratory in the areas of biology and biotechnology, physical sciences, and Earth and space science," NASA noted. "Advances in these areas will help keep astronauts healthy during NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon and long-duration space travel and demonstrate technologies for future human and robotic exploration beyond low-Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars."