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Miniature human hearts and brain models launched for the International Space Station on Tuesday morning aboard commercial resupply mission CRS-35 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Researchers from Mount Sinai, NASA and Space Tango will study how microgravity and radiation affect the organs and whether the space environment can provide insight into accelerated aging. The shipment is expected to arrive at the station on Thursday.

The research aims to use miniature organs to simulate aging over a shorter period, helping scientists understand disease and develop treatments. “Six months in space ... is equivalent to about 10 to 20 years of aging on Earth,” Kevin Costa, associate professor of surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told ABC News.

David Sachs, an assistant professor of surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said the work could inform plans for people living and working in space as well as research on Earth. “If people are going to be living and working in space, then we need to understand what's going to happen to them,” he told ABC News. “But also, because it's interesting as a model of accelerated aging for studying people on Earth.”

Sachs and Costa are sending as many as 16 miniature hearts to the ISS. Researchers will test how the hearts respond to electrical signals and monitor their reactions to near-zero gravity. The hearts are housed in a CubeLab, a miniature laboratory developed by Space Tango that simulates the natural environment inside the human body.

The CubeLab is “slightly bigger than a shoebox, and it is a fully automated, miniaturized system,” said Gentry Barnett, Space Tango’s chief technology officer, in comments to ABC News. The compact setup is designed for experiments aboard the station, where available space is limited.

The effort also includes miBrains, miniature brain models about the size of a peppercorn. They represent both healthy and diseased brains. Exposing them to space conditions will let scientists observe how they respond and investigate why living in space accelerates aging.

The models are not full-sized human organs, but researchers say they can serve as substitutes, cost less and take up little room aboard the space station. They also expect findings from the experiments to have potential applications in everyday medical care.

Microgravity offers a way to study the effects of a sedentary lifestyle or prolonged bed rest, conditions that are difficult to simulate on Earth, Sachs said. Joel Blanchard, an associate professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine and neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said the work could connect space research with studies of neurological disease. “[The research is] translating to stuff in space, but it's also translating back to the research we do in the laboratory to help people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease,” he told ABC News.

Lisa Carnell, director of NASA’s biological and physical sciences division, said the experiments provide a starting point for future research beyond low Earth orbit, including trips to the moon and beyond.