The space shuttle Endeavor launched for its second-to-last flight this morning, taking with it, a Ballard High School science experiment.

The shuttle, headed for the International Space Station, has aboard select student experiment as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).

Students in Ballard HIgh School's biotechnology and astronomy programs were chosen to send their project - E.Coli cells - into space where it will fly for 14 days.

Designed by BHS students, the experiment pertains to the growth of E.Coli cells in space.

Once in orbit, a population of dormant non-pathenogenic E. Coli will be inserted into a liquid growth medium. The cells will reproduce at a different rate than on earth.

“So we keep these E.Coli cells and the growth solution separate. We won’t touch them and once they’re in space and astronaut will pull a lever which will unite them and allow them to grow,” said student Katie Kemp.

After the flight students will recover and freeze a population of these well-traveled cells grown in microgravity and compare them to the same strain of stay-at-home E. Coli for changes like mutations, plasmid uptake ability, and growth rate.

“In free-fall space, the bacteria will be exposed to more radiation - ultraviolet, gamma-rays, photons, etc and this will have an effect on the growth,” said teacher Eric Muhs, who has been running the new astrobiology course.

“What we’re expecting is higher mutations and the growth rate will probably be higher,” said student Lewis Gensen.

Seattle Public Schools secured partial funding for this project through the Washington Space Consortium and Muhs said that by freezing a population of the well-travelled E.Coli, future students will be able to work with these cells for years to come.

Only 15 school districts in the United States are participating in the SSEP and a few selected student experiments will fly aboard the Shuttle.

The SSEP is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE), a project of the 501(c)(3) Tides Center, in partnership with Nanoracks, LLC. This on-orbit educational research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.