Boreskov

OP‐15SPACE FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS WITH NON‐TERRESTRIAL MINERALS ANDBIOORGANIC MOLECULESGontareva N.B., Kuzicheva E.A.Institute of Сytology RAS, St. Petersburg, RussiaLife has probably existed on Earth for about 3.5 billion years. It is supposed thatorganisms as complex as bacteria had emerged within 0.5‐1 billion years. But, this seems arather short timescale for such an important step and suggests that some basic buildingblocks of life may have reached Earth from space. The main point of the reportedexperiments was to identify an abiotic process that results in complex organic compounds,the monomeric units of nucleic acids and amino acids, on the surface of comets, asteroids,meteorites, and cosmic dust particles. At the same time, the task was to reveal catalyticor/and protective properties of meteorites and similar terrestrial minerals. The synthesis of5'‐monophosphates and dipeptides, the predominant reaction products, along with otherchemical derivatives, has been carried out under interplanetary conditions and in presenceof minerals simulating the surface of small space body. The reaction must proceed undersolvent‐free conditions and incident ultraviolet radiation in a vacuum. Short UV radiation(145 nm and 154 nm) was used as a trigger for photochemical processes. Two types ofsubstances (amino acids and nucleosides) were examined in respect with their chemicalreactivity in presence of lunar soil, Allende meteorite, Murchison meteorite and terrestrialminerals of similar composition (pyroxene and olivine). Our task was to distinguish principaldifferences, if any, of minerals participating in chemical processes and to figure out the mostefficient mineral matrix. The main application of these laboratory experiments is selection ofthe most “chemically active” mineral to be employed at next flight experiment onboard“Bion‐10M” Russian space satellite. Since the space and weight on the experimentalplatform is very limited, it seems incredibly important to make the right choice. Hardware ofBion experiment has been designed exactly for that kind of scientific tasks, software andgeneral strategy of the whole experiment will be reported as well. It should be outlined thatfulfilling such a task became possible after several series of flight and laboratory experimentsand as a result of continuous efforts of different professionals, both researchers andengineers. Previous data and strategy, selection of materials and methods were taken intoserious consideration, and the basic presumption was to demonstrate yet another evidence54