posted 08-04-2015 08:24 AM               

Chinese scientists from the Beijing Institute of Technology, led by Professor Deng Yulin, will pay about $200,000 to NanoRacks for its services. This includes delivery of the experiment to the American side of the station in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and a berth in NanoRacks' orbiting laboratory facilities. In turn the company will send data back to the Chinese researchers.

...the Chinese researcher, Deng, reportedly has no connections to the country's ruling communist party. His research group publishes its work in Western journals, to share it with the global academic community. His space station work will be made available this way, Manber said.

The research concerns the effects of space radiation on DNA, and the rate at which human DNA mutates in the space environment. If the speed at which it changes is too great, it may imperil astronauts on long duration missions beyond low-Earth orbit.