Had they actually sent them outside the Van Allen Belt, the study might have proven useful.
Well, the article doesn’t tell exactly/all that they were looking for.
I agree that there are ‘stupid and useless’ studies; but science builds on science - and often in the process of looking for something, we find something else that happens to be useful or intriguing, and shoots us off into new directions.
I wouldn’t judge a study like this without reading the proposal/protocol and then the assessment of results.