Young people involved in experiments
A project designed to involve young people of all ages in the adventure of human spaceflight will start during the Andromède mission.
CNES is sponsoring the Educational Experiment Project on board the International Space Station (EP ISS) which follows on from similar experiments carried out on board Mir during the French Perseus mission in 1999.
It will be continued when flight opportunities to the Station arise and during the Andromède mission, Claudie Haigneré will supervise several experiments which all form part of the project.
The first is an experiment conceived by children from the Alcide Dussolier lycée, Nontron (Dordogne), studying the effects of microgravity on the polarised cell division of yeast: 'l’Odysée des Levures', or Yeast Odyssey.
Claudie will also implement other scientific experiments which will involve children simultaneously carrying out similar experiments in their classrooms, with the assistance of the laboratories involved.
For example, Cogni, a study of the influence of microgravity on memory in 3D, is an experiment which will be carried out on the ground by students from the Collège Cantelande, Cestas (Gironde), and the Jaunay-Clan lycée, Poitiers (Vienne), in collaboration with a laboratory of the Collège de France based in Paris.
The same principle will apply to Aquarius, an experiment proposed by the laboratories of the universities of Nancy and Ulm, to address the effects of microgravity on the sensory system of vertebrates.
Xenopes will be studied on the ground and French children from the Varoquaux lycée, Nancy in association with German children from the Schubart gymnasium in Ulm, will compare patterns of the Xenopes’ behaviour to similar samples on board the Space Station.
For the Immedias experiment (for the Medias laboratory), children from the Eiffel lycée in Bordeaux will use photographs taken on board the Space Station for a project on the awareness of the impact of climatic changes.