The Virgin Galactic Unity 22 mission conducted the first astronaut-manipulated suborbital spaceflight experiment. The experiment examined the operationalization of Kennedy Space Center Fixation Tubes (KFTs) as a generalizable approach to preserving biology at various phases of suborbital flight. The biology chosen for this experiment was Arabidopsis thaliana, ecotype Col-0, because of the plant history of spaceflight experimentation within KFTs and wealth of comparative data from orbital experiments. KFTs were deployed as a wearable device, a leg pouch attached to the astronaut, which proved to be operationally effective during the course of the flight. Data from the inflight samples indicated that the microgravity period of the flight elicited the strongest transcriptomic responses as measured by the number of genes showing differential expression. Genes related to reactive oxygen species and stress, as well as genes associated with orbital spaceflight, were highly represented among the suborbital gene expression profile. In addition, gene families largely unaffected in orbital spaceflight were diversely regulated in suborbital flight, including stress-responsive transcription factors. The human-tended suborbital experiment demonstrated the operational effectiveness of the KFTs in suborbital flight and suggests that rapid transcriptomic responses are a part of the temporal dynamics at the beginning of physiological adaptation to spaceflight.

维珍银河 Unity 22 任务进行了首次宇航员操纵的亚轨道太空飞行实验。该实验检验了肯尼迪航天中心固定管（KFT）的操作性，作为在亚轨道飞行的各个阶段保存生物的通用方法。本实验选择的生物是拟南芥，生态型 Col-0，因为植物在 KFT 内进行过航天实验，并且有丰富的轨道比较数据实验。 KFT 被部署为可穿戴设备，即附在宇航员身上的腿袋，事实证明它在飞行过程中运行有效。来自飞行样本的数据表明，通过显示差异表达的基因数量来衡量，飞行的微重力时期引发了最强的转录组反应。与活性氧和应激相关的基因，以及与轨道航天相关的基因，在亚轨道基因表达谱中得到高度体现。此外，在轨道航天中基本上不受影响的基因家族在亚轨道飞行中受到不同的调节，包括应激反应转录因子。人工亚轨道实验证明了 KFT 在亚轨道飞行中的运行有效性，并表明快速转录组反应是太空飞行生理适应开始时时间动态的一部分。