Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers are collaborating with NASA to send human heart "tissue-on-a-chip" specimens into space as early as March. The project is designed to monitor the tissue for changes in heart muscle cells' mitochondria (their power supply) and ability to contract in low-gravity conditions.

The tissue samples will be launched into space aboard SpaceX CRS-27, a resupply mission to the International Space Station, slated for liftoff no earlier than Tuesday, March 14, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronauts on board during the mission will also introduce three FDA-approved medicines to the samples in efforts to prevent heart cell changes known or suspected to occur in those undertaking long-duration spaceflights.

Japan's space agency intentionally destroyed a new H3 rocket minutes after its launch Tuesday because the ignition failed for the second stage of the country's first new rocket series in more than two decades.

Coming three weeks after an aborted launch due to a separate glitch, the H3's failure was a setback for Japan's space program—and possibly for its missile detection program—and a disappointment for space fans who were rooting for Tuesday's retrial.

The H3 rocket with a white head blasted off and soared into the blue sky from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as fans and local residents cheered. It followed its planned trajectory and the second stage separated as designed, but the ignition for it failed, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said.