Spaceflight Hardware

The Research Partnership Centers have a long-standing reputation for building reliable spaceflight hardware at costs that are
fractions of those encountered in NASA and traditional contractors.  The reasons are many and varied, but the primary ones
are the leverage provided by the RPC industrial partners and the low costs associated with design, assembly and operation at
the host universities.  The RPCs have flown over 174 payloads, on Shuttle, MIR and ISS, during their 20-year history, more
than any other group outside of NASA.  The overwhelming bulk of these payloads have performed flawlessly.  What
anomalies have occurred have been typical of NASA payloads and have only affected science data, not safety or reliability.  
The RPC payloads are owned by the RPCs themselves, and many are available for flight with only minor upgrades or
refurbishing.  Some of the payloads, such as the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA), are currently
operational on ISS.  A partial list of RPC payloads is given below:


Partial List of RPC Hardware:


  • Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA)
  • Commercial Plant Biotechnology Facility (CPBF)
  • Commercial Biomedical Testing Module (CBTM)
  • Commercial Protein Crystal Growth – High Throughput Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG-H)
  • Commercial Protein Crystal Growth – Video (CPCG-V)
  • Commercial Refrigerator Incubator Module-Modified (CRIM-M)
  • Commercial Vapor Diffusion Apparatus (CVDA)
  • Development of Organic Materials for Electroluminescence(DOME)
  • EXPRESS Air Generic Locker Equivalent(EAGLE)
  • Fluid Processing Apparatus (FPA)
  • Group Activation Pack (GAP)
  • Low Temperature/Low Energy Carrier (LoTEC©)
  • Microencapsulation Electrostatic Processing System(MEPS)
  • Microgravity Experiment Research Locker INcubator(MERLIN)
  • Multiple Orbital Bioreactor with Instrumentation and Automated Sampling (MOBIAS)
  • Plant Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (PGBA)
  • Protein Crystallization Facility (PCF)
  • Protein Crystallization Facility with Light Scattering (PCF-LS)
  • Space Dynamically Responding Ultrasonic Matrix System (Space-DRUMS™)
  • Space Product Development Experiment Module (SPDEM)
  • Temperature Controlled Storage System (TCSS)
  • Zeolite Crystal Growth - Furnace Unit (ZCG-FU)
  • Zeolite Crystal Growth – High Temperature Furnace (ZCG-HTF)