research papers professional development

Research into Practice: Using Case Studies in Professional Development

• First Online: 01 January 2010

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• Nancy Law 4 ,
• Allan Yuen 4 &
• Robert Fox 4  

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Professional development of teachers involves working with individuals, understanding their needs, experiences, hopes, and goals, sharing, exchanging, and exploring practices, trialing new ways of doing things, and critically reflecting on models, factors, and practices that influence what happens in different education environments. In this chapter, we explore how the SITES-M2 case studies are being used to support professional development – to act as a catalyst to advance and change educational practices. We describe the roles that case studies in general have played in education, before documenting how the SITES-M2 case studies are being used to inform educational practices in Hong Kong and elsewhere. The model underpinning this use of the studies is not one of “farming,” that is, of trying to replicate innovations as good practices in different regions, countries, schools, and classrooms. Rather, it is one that encompasses observation, interpretation, and analysis. It also involves, where appropriate, adapting, with reference to a model of evolving development and change, ideas taken from the case studies so that they suit different environments. We also consider, in this chapter, how the SITES-M2 studies can be used to stimulate change in thinking about innovation and the role that technology can play in different contexts. We describe how this use has played out so far during workshops held in different countries for teachers and educational administrators and during professional development courses for teachers.

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 For detailed information on and examples of these case study approaches, as well as information on the CD -Rom mentioned in the next paragraph, see:

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IEA: http://www.iea.nl/sites-m2.html

UNESCO: http://www.unescobkk.org/education/ict/ict-in-education-projects/innovative-practices/

 To access the USA website, go to http://edtechcases.info/exemp_home.htm ; to access the Hong Kong website go to http://sitesdatabase.cite.hku.hk/online/index.asp .

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Law, N., Yuen, A., Fox, R. (2011). Research into Practice: Using Case Studies in Professional Development. In: Educational Innovations Beyond Technology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71148-5_9

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This study investigates the short-term impacts of a school leadership professional development program implemented in 525 randomly selected schools across Rwanda from 2018 to 2019. The program aimed to enhance the skills of school headteachers in leadership, management, and teacher support. Although no significant average treatment effects are observed one to two years after the intervention, an increase in test scores is identified in public primary schools compared to government-aided schools by at least 0.11 standard deviations. This disparity may be attributed to the potentially weaker school management and resources in public primary schools at the outset, as well as the time constraints and ownership structure faced by headteachers in government aided schools. Despite the modest effect, the program shows potential for cost-effective improvement in student learning, especially considering that typically only one headteacher per school is trained. Further research should focus on optimizing the design of school leadership professional development programs and exploring the underlying mechanisms necessary to enhance their overall effectiveness.

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“Medication is binary, but gender expressions are often not”—the Hilary Cass interview

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Developing a new NHS service for young people with gender dysphoria or incongruence has been a “phenomenal challenge,” says the paediatrician charged with the task, not least because of poor data on long term outcomes of treatment. Clare Dyer reports

Clinical guidelines used widely around the world to treat children and adolescents who raise issues about their gender were developed in breach of international standards on guideline development, a review set up by NHS England has concluded. 1

The review, chaired by Hilary Cass, past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, calls for far reaching changes to the way children and adolescents with gender dysphoria and gender incongruence are treated. In an interim report in 2022 it recommended that these young people be brought within the mainstream NHS and treated by multidisciplinary teams that would look at them holistically, providing psychosocial interventions where needed. 2

The review commissioned the University of York to research international practice and guidelines in the field. Cass noted, “The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) has been highly influential in directing international practice, although its guidelines were found by the University of York’s appraisal to lack developmental rigour and transparency.” 3

In its final report, published this week, Cass’s review pointed out that although most of the guidelines described insufficient evidence about the risks and benefits of medical treatment “many then went on to cite this same evidence to recommend medical treatment.”

The research carried out by York University, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood , found that the evidence on the use of puberty blockers and hormones in young people with gender related distress was wholly inadequate, making it impossible to gauge their effectiveness or their effects on mental and physical health. 4 5 6 7 “No conclusions can be drawn about the impact on gender dysphoria, mental and psychosocial health, or cognitive development,” the research concluded.

Similarly, evidence on key outcomes, such as body satisfaction, psychosocial and cognitive outcomes, fertility, bone health, and cardiometabolic effects, was lacking or inconsistent. The research also found that there was no consensus on who should be involved in providing psychosocial support or on whether provision for young children should be different from that for teenagers. And there was virtually no guidance on how best to support young people who have not yet reached puberty or those whose identity is non-binary.

Creating a new NHS service to transform the treatment of young people with gender issues has proved a “phenomenal challenge,” Cass’s report said. The previous sole provider of such services in the NHS, the gender identity development service (GIDS) at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London, was closed down after the Cass review’s interim finding that it was “not a safe or viable long term option.” 8

The first two regional centres, one in London and one in the North West, got under way this month after a year’s delay, the first step in commissioning a network of regional services around England. Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children will lead the London service, in partnership with Evelina London Children’s Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, while Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool will host the northern service, along with the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

But the development of the new service has been bedevilled by recruitment and training difficulties. Not only has the transgender issue become what the review describes as a “highly emotive and politicised arena” for clinicians who would work in it; the review has also uncovered a weak evidence base for the treatments previously used and a lack of data on long term outcomes among patients, making it difficult to provide the information needed to secure properly informed consent.

The politicisation of the debate “coupled with concerns about the weakness of the evidence base and a lack of professional guidance has impacted the ability of the new services to recruit the appropriate multidisciplinary workforce,” notes the final report. It found a “general lack of confidence among the wider workforce to engage with gender questioning children and adolescents.”

Limited workforce must be shared

The review recommends that services should not be located solely in tertiary centres such as Great Ormond Street and Alder Hey but that “a much broader based service model is needed with a flexible workforce working across a regional footprint in partnership with designated local specialist services.” It adds, “There is a finite workforce available to serve the needs of this population and the wider population of young people with complex needs, therefore partnerships with local services must be developed so that workforce can be shared across the network without destabilising local services.”

The review proposes that a small number of secondary services within existing child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and paediatric services would be designated local specialist services in each area, which would increase the available workforce.

In the early 2000s most patients referred to GIDS were a small number of young people who were questioning the male gender assigned to them at birth. But by 2014 the caseload had expanded and changed dramatically, and most were birth registered girls whose gender dysphoria had begun in their early teens. Many had other problems, such as autism, ADHD, or other mental health diagnoses or adverse childhood experiences.

GIDS ran an early intervention study from 2011 to 2014 in which young people were given puberty blockers—drugs to pause sexual development and supposedly “give them time to think” about what should happen next. From 2014 the provision of puberty blockers was no longer a research project but became routine clinical practice, the rationale for which was “unclear,” the review found. The research, which was not published in preprint until December 2020, found no statistically significant changes in gender dysphoria or mental health outcomes. 9 Cass’s review notes that blocking the release of sex hormones “could have a range of unintended and as yet unidentified consequences.”

Almost all the young people given puberty blockers went on to take masculinising or feminising hormones. But the review concludes that “the evidence for the indicated uses of puberty blockers and masculinising/feminising hormones in adolescents [is] unproven and benefits/harms are unknown.” There was also “a failure to systematically consider how psychosocial interventions should be used and to research their efficacy.”

Follow-up vital

The review recommends a “full programme of research that looks at the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of every young person presenting to the NHS gender services.” Puberty blockers should be available only under a research protocol, and the review suggests caution in prescribing masculinising or feminising hormones from age 16 and recommends that there should be a “clear rationale” for not waiting till 18.

Swedish and Finnish guidelines, which are evidence based, suggest a more cautious approach to the use of puberty blockers, said Cass. 10 “I can’t think of another area of paediatric care where we give young people a potentially irreversible treatment and have no idea what happens to them in adulthood,” she said in an interview with The BMJ ’s editor in chief, Kamran Abbasi. 11

The University of York was commissioned to carry out a research study interviewing young adults, many of whom had had access to a medical pathway, involving hormone treatment, which they said “enabled them to lead the lives they wanted,” the study found. “Others explored equally empowering options, such as social transitioning and more fluid and non-binary expressions of gender.”

Cass’s review recommends an assessment process and individualised care plan, with the aim of helping young people thrive and achieve their life goals. “For the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to achieve this,” says the review. “For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this in the absence of addressing any wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems such as family breakdown, barriers to participation in school life or social activities, bullying, and minority stress.”

• ↵ Cass H. Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people: final report. April. Apr 2024. https://cass.independent-review.uk/?page_id=936
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• Published: 29 March 2024

Orbital Reef and commercial low Earth orbit destinations—upcoming space research opportunities

• Luis Zea   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4301-9620 1 ,
• Liz Warren   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2852-6277 2 ,
• Tara Ruttley   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7184-6749 2 ,
• Todd Mosher 2 ,
• Laura Kelsey 1 &
• Erika Wagner 2  

npj Microgravity volume  10 , Article number:  43 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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As the International Space Station comes to the end of a transformative era of in-space research, NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Destinations (CLD) Program aims to catalyze a new generation of platforms with co-investment from the private sector, preventing a potential gap in research performed in LEO, while building a robust LEO economy. In this paper, we provide insight into the CLD Program focusing on Orbital Reef, describing its operational and technical characteristics as well as new opportunities it may enable. Achieving about a third of the pressurized volume of the ISS with the launch of a single pressurized module and growing to support hundreds of Middeck Locker Equivalents (MLE) in passive and active payloads internally and externally, Orbital Reef will enable government, academic, and commercial institutions to continue and expand upon research and development (R&D) efforts currently performed on ISS. Additionally, it will enable nascent markets to establish their operations in space, by initiating new lines of research and technology development and the implementation of new ventures and visions. Using Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy launch system, Sierra Space’s cargo and crew Dream Chaser® vehicles, and Boeing’s Starliner crew vehicle, and expertise from Amazon/Amazon Supply Chain, Arizona State University, Genesis Engineering, and Redwire, Orbital Reef is being designed to address ISS-era transportation logistics challenges. Finally, this manuscript describes some of the expected challenges from the ISS-to-CLD transition, and provides guidance on how researchers in academia and industry can shape the future of commercial destinations and work performed in LEO.

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Introduction

The International Space Station (ISS) is a multi-nation project, the single largest structure ever put in Earth’s orbit. It has hosted over 250 people from over 20 countries and over 3000 completed research investigations since assembly began in 1998 1 . Several of these efforts have translated into scientific and technical breakthroughs and have enabled advancements in a myriad of fields. For example, protein crystal growth investigations performed on ISS have provided novel insights into multiple disease treatments, as have fundamental and applied research on Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, heart disease, and various cancers 2 . The ISS has opened new fields of inquiry and fostered innovative techniques and capabilities, including the use of tissue chips in space, quiescent colloid research, 3D printing in microgravity, the development of new water purification systems, and lessons in how to live and thrive in space for longer durations 2 . As the ISS comes to the end of its design life, NASA now plans to retire the platform in 2030, and has established the Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) Program to plan for the future 3 , 4 .

NASA’s commercial LEO destinations (CLD) program

NASA’s commercial LEO programs are designed to support a transition to commercially owned and operated services that support the agency’s science, technology maturation, and astronaut training needs in Earth orbit 3 , 5 , 6 . In early 2020, NASA awarded a contract for commercial modules to be attached to the ISS to Axiom Space 3 , 7 . The Commercial Destinations-Free Flyer program was established in 2021 as a two-phase acquisition. In December 2021, NASA announced three awards through 2025: Northrop Grumman, Nanoracks “Starlab”, and Orbital Reef 5 . In Phase 1, private industry, in coordination with NASA, designs CLD capabilities to address government and commercial needs. Phase 2 will support certification of one or more platforms for U.S. government astronauts and end-to-end services including ground support, transportation, and on-orbit operations 5 , 6 . These services will ensure NASA’s ability to maintain a permanent presence in LEO with at least two crew members, performing approximately 200 scientific investigations annually 5 . These services are intended to be operational in the late 2020s to prevent a gap in LEO presence for the U.S. and its partners, and to ensure a smooth transition of operations from ISS 3 , 6 .

A self-reinforcing ecosystem in space: an Orbital Reef

Orbital Reef will be a mixed-use business and research park; one of the world’s first commercial free-flying space stations. It is being jointly developed across the U.S. by Blue Origin, with Sierra Space, Boeing, Redwire Space, Amazon/Amazon Supply Chain, Genesis Engineering, and Arizona State University as teammates. Orbital Reef’s name follows the premise under which it is being developed: to serve as a robust infrastructure for a diverse, growing, and self-reinforcing ecosystem in Earth’s orbit, much like the ecosystems of coral reefs in the ocean. By providing a turnkey service with accessible infrastructure in LEO, Orbital Reef lowers the barriers to entry, and enables existing and nascent users to establish their operations in space. Customized spaces within Orbital Reef allow for government and private institutions, as well as commercial and academic entities to implement new ventures and visions, ranging from basic and applied R&D to entertainment and hospitality to port-of-call for exploration missions 8 . The station will be occupied by a mix of professional Orbital Reef crew members, national astronauts, and commercial users. Orbital Reef will have the capabilities needed to address scientific research and technology maturation currently being performed on ISS, ensuring the smooth transition envisioned by NASA’s CLD Program.

In its initial phase, Orbital Reef will consist of (i) a Node and (ii) a Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE TM ) developed by Sierra Space, (iii) a Core module and (iv) a power/thermal Mast developed by Blue Origin, and (v) a Research Module developed by Boeing (Fig. 1 ). The Core, with 250 m 3 of habitable volume, nearly a third of that available on the ISS, will serve as the central hub for the rest of Orbital Reef’s modules and visiting vehicles, as well as the center for command and control, data processing, and communications with the ground. It will host internal and external payloads, stowage, an environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) sized to support up to ten crewmembers, a commode, and will include six of the largest windows ever flown to space facing Earth. The Research Module, similar in size to the Core, will include a payload airlock/cupola and will host internal and external payloads, serving as a multi-disciplinary laboratory, customizable to user requirements. The Mast will generate 100 kWe through its deployable solar arrays. It will collect and reject heat, and will serve as the bus for communications and other critical systems, including an external robotic arm and docking and berthing nodes. The LIFE™ habitat is an expandable module that will provide over 300 m 3 of habitable volume to host payloads and research facilities, an ECLSS and sleeping quarters for up to ten crewmembers, two commodes, a health and hygiene compartment, a galley, exercise equipment, and plant growth hardware. Finally, the ~40 m 3 Node will include two International Docking System Standard (IDSS)-compatible visiting vehicle ports, an airlock for extravehicular activity (EVA), and will be able to host external payloads and provide station-keeping functions. More details on each of these modules and their operations are described in Mosher & Kelsey, 2023.

Orbital Reef’s modular pressurized elements: Node, LIFE TM , Core, and Research Module from Mosher & Kelsey, 2023.

This modular architecture can be scaled through linear addition of additional Core and Mast modules, which can each support additional tenant modules to support growing market demand and new functionality.

Upcoming opportunities

Capabilities.

Across its modules, Orbital Reef will have hundreds of MLE worth of volume to host passive and active payloads in addition to state-of-the-science research facilities to enable the continuation and expansion of R&D currently performed on ISS, as well as to initiate new lines of research and technology development. To achieve a smooth transition from ISS, Orbital Reef’s payload interfaces will be backwards-compatible with ISS MLE standards, i.e., hardware used on the ISS will be by default compatible. Additionally, Orbital Reef’s interfaces will offer optional upgraded interfaces to optimize processes and crew time. Orbital Reef will have the capability to host external payloads, accessible through a science airlock and external robotics, which will transfer them from visiting vehicles. An airlock will provide external access to astronauts via Extravehicular Activity (EVA). Additionally, co-orbiting free-flyers from any customer may be qualified for deployment from Orbital Reef or visiting vehicles to serve as platforms for autonomous exploration experiments, isolated microgravity environments, and unique views of the Orbital Reef, the Earth, and deep space. Similarly, full modules developed by third parties may be attached to Orbital Reef, receiving utilities (power, life support, etc.) and services to enable focus on their particular use cases.

For internal payloads, Orbital Reef will provide power at 28 VDC, 120 VDC, and 120 VAC; data transmission via 10 G Base-T ethernet and Wi-Fi; 36 kW of heat rejection; and nitrogen, carbon dioxide, water, air, and vacuum exhaust distribution hardware. Orbital Reef crew time can be made available for the operation of customer payloads and payload facilities, photography and videography, and other activities. Conversely or in parallel, customers themselves may work and live on Orbital Reef with the opportunity to bring their own payload facilities, as needed. Payload facilities will provide the capabilities needed to address multiple scientific and technical R&D and use cases. These include freezer banks (−80 °C and -20 °C), refrigeration (4 °C), incubators, separate life and physical sciences gloveboxes, microscopes, optics bench platform, 3-D printers, biofabrication banks, production facilities, a pressurized gas tank farm, and areas designated for NASA and commercial payload facilities and devices or for multi-purpose use. Externally, Orbital Reef will provide powered payloads with up to 2 kW of power distributed at 120 VDC and 10 G Base-T ethernet. Mounts will be compatible with small, medium, and large on-orbit replaceable unit (ORU) robotics interface standards (SORI, MORI, and LORI, respectively).

Designed to solve ISS-era challenges

As described above, the ISS has been the premier in-space platform where we have learned to develop processes and technologies, made groundbreaking discoveries, and opened the doors to new fields of science. Yet, multiple challenges must be solved to enable the continuation of R&D in space. For example, 42 flights were necessary to achieve the fully assembled 1005 m 3 of pressurized volume on the ISS 1 . Similarly, the ISS was designed in a way that required external spacewalks to be maintained, and this feature has impacted crew time availability to perform research activities. Ironically, the success of R&D on ISS has generated several other challenges, including limitations in stowage (especially temperature-controlled) and competition for on-orbit facilities. These problems have been exacerbated by the relatively low cadence of flights to bring new payloads, the limited up-mass of visiting vehicles, and the lack of down-mass opportunities. While several vehicles have visited the International Space Station, after the space shuttle retired in 2011, only Russia’s Progress, ESA’s ATV (retired in 2015), JAXA’s HTV (retired in 2020), Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus and SpaceX’s Dragon could carry significant cargo to ISS. But because all but Dragon and Soyuz burn up on re-entry, sample return has been limited to these vehicles. This pace delays investigators access to their science, reduces cadence of research, and results in over-committed ISS stowage and freezer space. Other challenges that need to be solved by the CLD community include the ability to upgrade research facilities as quickly as technology advances, and to provide access to non-ISS partner countries and private industry with fewer restrictions. While the intention was set in the 1980s to develop a space station to galvanize the commercialization of LEO, so far these and other challenges have resulted in slow realization 9 .

Orbital Reef’s modules will take advantage of two key innovations: the larger 7-meter diameter fairing of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, and soft-goods and expandable technologies of Sierra Space’s LIFE TM habitat. The LIFE TM module alone offers about a third of ISS’s pressurized volume. Additionally, Orbital Reef is being designed so that it can be maintained from the inside of the space station, avoiding complex EVA operations and helping focus crew time on R&D, production, and revenue-generation efforts. The primary assembly of Orbital Reef will rely on Extravehicular Robotics (EVR), limiting conventional EVAs to contingencies and training missions. Substantial improvements in robotic technologies, as well as designing for robotic assembly and maintenance, will support this economical and safety-driven approach 8 . This reduction in operational expenses translates into lower cost to do research on Orbital Reef for the scientific community.

To address ISS-era transportation challenges, Orbital Reef will utilize Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch system and Sierra Space’s Cargo and Crew Dream Chasers. Additionally, Orbital Reef will be able to receive other vehicles (e.g., Dragon, Boeing Starliner, Cygnus) with both standard berthing and docking interfaces. Furthermore, as a winged vehicle, Dream Chaser will provide a low-g return path to ensure gravity-sensitive samples (e.g., protein crystals) return safely to Earth, and it may land in any runway that can accommodate a Boeing 737 around the world, providing investigators and companies with quick access to their samples or in-space developed products. In addition, our teammates at Amazon/Amazon Supply Chain are reimagining the art of the possible for space logistics. Our robust access to up- and down-mass, together with a philosophy of moving at the speed of business, will allow prompt updates to on-orbit facilities to stay current with the state of art of the science. Robotics and automation will enhance research activities and optimize crew time, and technologies such as augmented reality will connect space-based researchers to their laboratories on Earth, optimizing collaboration and efficiency of research activities. Given its commercial nature, Orbital Reef will provide access to orbit to both ISS and non-ISS partner countries and the private sector. University and Industry R&D Advisory Councils managed by Arizona State University and MIT, respectively, provide focused user inputs to shape the next generation of facilities and processes needed by researchers in academia, government, and industry.

The 2023 ‘Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space’ for 2023–2032, produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine provides recommendations for “a comprehensive vision and strategy for a decade of transformative science at the frontiers of biological and physical sciences research in space” 10 . This report provides long-term strategic advice to NASA and clarity to researchers on which fields of biological and physical sciences are more likely to be supported by the U.S. federal government. Similarly, this decadal survey offers a roadmap towards future facility needs, which community advocacy can leverage to advance the state-of-the-art for science hardware on Commercial LEO Destinations. In this way and many others, investigators can inform CLD developers of their needs, and work with implementation partners to mature their technologies, as described below.

There are numerous ways for the research community to take action now towards conducting research, technology development, and manufacturing activities on Orbital Reef, well before the planned retirement of ISS in 2030. The Orbital Reef team provides a continuum of microgravity research services to payload customers that currently includes suborbital New Shepard flights and soon will include Dream Chaser orbital flights. Both platforms can be used to de-risk projects and collect proof of concept validation. NASA, the ISS international partner agencies, and the ISS National Laboratory have nearly continuous open calls for researchers seeking to leverage the ISS for technology development and both fundamental and applied R&D—to further space exploration and for terrestrial benefit. There are also related funding opportunities from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DoD), and others.

In March of 2023, the LEO Science and Technology Interagency Working Group of the U.S. National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) published an interagency strategy and action plan to enable U.S. Government-wide collaboration and support of public-private partnerships to ensure continuity of access and sustainable LEO research and development activities 11 . The research community should continue to advocate for robust government funding to implement this strategy, through publishing thought leadership papers and editorials, responding to NASA Requests for Information (RFI’s), participating in National Academies’ workshops, and shaping the conversation toward the importance of continuous research access to LEO. The research community can also engage directly with the Orbital Reef team to share requirements for next-generation research-enabling facilities in orbit. The research community can position itself to be ready with preliminary data, collaborations, and ground research completed in time to win planned upcoming awards to transition LEO science from ISS to CLDs.

Orbital Reef’s unique environment in Low Earth Orbit offers long-term microgravity, extreme environmental conditions, and a vantage point from which to study the Earth and space. For researchers and organizations who are pushing the limits of understanding and capability, space is a rich environment to probe for new insights and develop new paths to innovation. By reimagining the art of the possible, Orbital Reef will help us take a key step toward a bold vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

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E.W. conceived of and critically guided the development of the manuscript; L.Z., L.W., T.R., T.M., and L.K. contributed to the manuscript content, and L.Z. supervised production of the manuscript.

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Zea, L., Warren, L., Ruttley, T. et al. Orbital Reef and commercial low Earth orbit destinations—upcoming space research opportunities. npj Microgravity 10 , 43 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-024-00363-x

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Received : 22 June 2023

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-024-00363-x

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