SCORPI AND SCORPI-T:NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS ON ANIMALS IN SPACE

摘要

The study of physiological adaptation to long-term spacernflights with special consideration of the internal clockrnsystems of scorpions is the goal of the SCORPI andrnSCORPI-T experiments. SCORPI was selected for flightrnon the International Space Station (ISS) and will bernmounted in the European facility BIOLAB, the ESArnlaboratory designed to support biological experiments onrnmicro-organisms, cells, tissue, cultures, small plants andrnsmall invertebrates. SCORPI-T experiment, performedrnon the Russian FOTON-M2 satellite in May-June 2005,rnrepresents an important precursor for the success of thernexperiment SCORPI on BIOLAB. This paper outlinesrnthe main features of the hardware designed andrndeveloped in order to allow the analysis of criticalrnaspects of experiment execution and the verification ofrnexperiment objectives. The capabilities of the hardwarerndeveloped for SCORPI and SCORPI-T show itsrnpotential use for any future similar type of experimentsrnin space.