Classroom Spiders and Butterflies Headed to Space

One experiment will chart the life cycle of butterflies — from larvae to pupa to butterfly to egg — in the low gravity of space, he said. The objective is to achieve one full life cycle for painted lady butterflies in the microgravity of space and compare it to a life cycle of the butterfly in the normal, Earth conditions in the classrooms, said BioServe payload mission manager Stefanie Countryman.

The other project will compare how spiders crawling about in space differ from Earth spiders when it comes to spinning webs and feeding. The goal is to compare the ability of an orb-weaving spider to spin webs and catch food in the nearly weightless environment of space and compare it to orb-weaving spiders performing those tasks on Earth, Countryman said. The spiders will get some space food to sustain them during the experiment — water and live fruit flies.

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