BOLOGNA: Lamborghini is working with the International Space Station to study the effects of extreme stress on five different composite materials.
Lamborghini announced last Friday that five carbon fibre samples created in-house will be travelling into space on Nov 2 to be studied by researchers at the International Space Station.
The project that led to this launch was started 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 lightweight, radio transparency and radio compatibility."
Information about the materials collected during this phase of the project is expected to have applications both within the car making and biomedical fields.
Lamborghini is the first car maker to use the ISS to conduct research on carbon fibre materials.
The composite samples will be onboard 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.
