The importance of educational institutes in design of life support systems for space missions and other biological space experiments

摘要

As long duration manned missions are considered in the near future a lot of experiments on life support systems and space environment will be necessary. On the other hand experimenting in manned missions and traditionally large satellites have become virtually impossible due to capacity of existing systems (no more space shuttle flights, ISS experiments too expensive and scarce). This calls for a new approach. Pico and small satellites could fill the gap for doing necessary experiments on life support systems. Research on the physiological and metabolic properties of in zero gravity has its application in the field of prolonged manned space missions. Bacteria can be used for waste recycling and resource recuperation, but can also be hazardous when travelling along in confined spaces, such as the ISS or because of corrosive properties. To investigate the change of conduct due to microgravity and cosmic radiation a lot of tests should be done with a lot of different types of biological loads. This is often not possible to do in the ISS, because waiting lines are long and getting tests on a mission is difficult. Pico-satellites (CubeSats) can be a solution to do more frequent and cost-effective research, if tests can be automated, controlled and monitored from earth. Defining a proper biochemical experiment, is a challenge, as for now recovery of reaction products is not feasible. As the possibilities to use CubeSats in research projects increase, due to ample initiatives to provide easy access and multi-orbiting of pico-satellites, research and educational institutes can take an important role in vital biological research and in spread of this innovative know-how.