Introduction to the science programme for the Cervantes Mission
There have been three European Soyuz Missions so far. All of them have demonstrated that they can produce remarkable scientific results. During the Cervantes Mission, ESA’s astronaut Pedro Duque will carry out a full scientific programme, spending about 40 hours of his eight-day stint on the ISS on experimental activity in life sciencies, physical sciences, Earth observation, education and technology.
Duque will be responsible for 24 experiments in total. Most of them will be performed in the Russian part of the ISS. Some experiments will be done in NASA’s Destiny laboratory. Destiny will host, for example, all physical science experiments to be developed in the Microgravity Science Glovebox, an ESA facility to work in a fully sterilised environment.
Most of the experiments are sponsored by the Spanish government, although there are also a number of reflights of experiments from the Belgian Odissea mission to the ISS in October 2002.
Duque will be responsible for the following experiments:
Life sciences
AGEING
GENE
ROOT
MESSAGE
WINOGRAD
NEUROCOG
CARDIOCOG
SYMPATHO
BMI
RHYTHM
Carbon Dioxide Survey
SSAS
Physical science and Earth observation
NANOSLAB
PROMISS
Lightning and sprite observation (LSO)
Education
ARISS
APIS
CHONDRO
THEBAS
VIDEO-2
Technology
Crew restraint
3D Camera
Ground experiments
CHROMOSOMES
AORTA