India, Oct. 22 -- A minute creature that is capable of forming a tight ball in difficult conditions has been chosen as an object of study to understand how living creatures cope with space. Tardigrades, whose name means "slow walkers" and which are also called "water bears" owing to their appearance under a microscope, are small invertebrate animals famous for their ability to withstand various forms of stress, including desiccation and freezing. The tardigrades were transported to the International Space Station by SpaceX's 22nd commercial resupply mission on June 3, 2021.

NASA's mission report described this experiment as one of a series of scientific investigations carried out in the orbiting laboratory. Known as Cell Science-04, the ...