ESA teams up with Swedish space physiology centre
ESA has selected the new Swedish Aerospace Physiology Centre of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm to support the Agency’s human research efforts with astronauts on the International Space Station.
ESA’s Directorate for Human Spaceflight and Operations will delegate technical work to the centre as part of the European LIfe and Physical Sciences in Space programme, or ELIPS. Human research is one of the main fields of ELIPS.
More than 30 human research experiments are currently selected under ELIPS and will be performed on the only space laboratory available to humankind. On average, around seven are running continuously in Europe’s Columbus laboratory and other Station modules.
ESA experiments on the Space Station are based on proposals from European researchers across all domains. ESA will select more projects in the International Life Science Research Announcement, due to be issued in late 2013, to augment the European human research portfolio up to 2020. Medical experts from the Swedish Aerospace Physiology Centre will provide scientific coordination.
Follow the ESA website for more information about the next round of research opportunities on the International Space Station. The Station is the only way to study the effects of living in space on the human body. The out-of-this-world laboratory offers scientists a benchmark to compare physiological processes in microgravity with those on the ground, and is preparing humans for exploration beyond Earth orbit.
