American Aerospace Advisors has announced that it is accepting commercial reservations for research on STS-133 (ULF-5), the last scheduled Space Shuttle mission, which will provide approximately two weeks of microgravity time.

The company's commercial payload utilizes flight proven microgravity hardware equipment flown on several earlier Space Shuttle space missions. The system accommodates approximately 100 industry/university samples covering a wide variety of research such as protein crystal growth, cell research, zeolite crystallization, collagen polymerization, ceramic and polymer thin film membrane casting, and a variety of fluid physics studies.

All flight results will be the property of the researcher.

The on-orbit research opportunity was enabled through NanoRacks, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

David Yoel, CEO of American Aerospace Advisors, said, "We are excited to participate in the last scheduled Space Shuttle mission, carrying forward the rich legacy of earlier efforts to explore the commercial value of processing materials in the absence of gravity. The low gravity environment promises to advance genetic medicines and other critical biological and industrial sciences. Initial bookings have been robust, and we look forward to accommodating many more researchers on this mission."

"Based on my experience as a student space experimenter at the dawn of the Shuttle era," Mr. Yoel continued, "we plan to establish a competition to award a university student research team's experiment a free ride, and to provide additional student programs with discounted access to space. We expect their work to produce a new generation of scientists and engineers that will lead a new era of commercial space utilization."

Plans call for this to be the first in a series of AAAI commercial missions designed to radically reduce the cost of access to space.