Lamborghini is collaborating with the International Space Station to study the effects of extreme stress on five different composite materials.
On Friday, Lamborghini announced that on November 2, five carbon fiber samples created in-house will be traveling into space to be studied by researchers at the International Space Station.
The project that led to this launch was initiated two years ago by Automobili Lamborghini and the Houston Methodist Research Institute to study “the biocompatibility of the composite materials to determine their possible use in prosthetic implants, but also in subcutaneous devices, taking advantage of their particular properties of light weight, radio transparency and radio compatibility.”
Information about the materials collected during this phase of the project is expected to have applications both within the automobile manufacturing and the biomedical fields.
Lamborghini is the first automobile manufacturer to use the ISS to conduct research on carbon fiber materials. The composite samples will be on board the space station for half a year, enduring tests that subject them to temperatures ranging from -40 to over 200 degrees Celsius, as well as extreme amounts of ultraviolet radiation and gamma rays. When the samples return to Earth, Lamborghini and the Houston Methodist Research Institute will study how the materials have changed over their stay in space.
The samples are scheduled to launch into space on November 2.