SpaceX ’s next mission to the International Space Station ( ISS ) is survive to have a rather exciting experimentation on plank . It ’s die to carry a pathogen hollo methicillin - immune staph aureus , or MRSA , a superbug that poses huge health problems on Earth .

But this blank experiment could test vital . Led by Anita Goel of Nanobiosym , it ’s thought the weightless surroundings on the ISS will accelerate the mutation rate of MRSA . This will give researchers a face at how this pathogen will develop in the hereafter , and perhaps help us hold on it . In the US , MRSA is responsible for for more than11,000 deathsevery year .

Notably , it is often hard to treat superbugs like this as they apace develop a resistance to antibiotic that we can not predict . But by check how they develop on the ISS , investigator could be in advance of the plot and train treatment for the future .

“ Our work in microgravity on [ the ] International Space Station is both very pragmatic and fundamental , ” Goel toldForbes . “ We are pushing the envelope of individualise , precision medicine , enable better foretelling of drug resistance and hence smarter drugs .

“ On a fundamental science degree , I am slap-up to quiz my 20 - year - onetime surmisal that the environment can profoundly influence the information flow from both the genome and transcriptome . ”

This experimentation will be take to the ISS by SpaceX ’s Dragon space capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket on February 18 . That launching is notable for another cause , too , as SpaceX will be using ahistoric NASA padfor the first meter . Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral in Florida was once used for the Space Shuttle , but in 2014 SpaceX took it over .

Aside from this interesting experimentation , the Dragon capsule will also be taking critical supplies and other experiments to the ISS . In total it will have about 2,500 kilograms ( 5,500 pounds ) of cargo on control panel .

This will be SpaceX ’s first launch attack from Florida since one of its roquette exploded back in September 2016 , although they of late returned to launch inmid - Januarywith a flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California .