by Axiom Space and its partners, including the European Space Agency (ESA), reveal some of the cutting-edge scientific investigations that will be carried out during its Axiom-3 mission.
To explode in January 2024 on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Axiom-3 crew – including Commander Michael López-Alegría, Pilot Walter Villadei, and Mission Specialists Alper Gezeravci and Marcus Wandt – journey to the International Space Station (ISS) in Dragon spaceship.
Once there, the Axiom-3 crew will spend 14 days at the ISS, using the microgravity conditions of low-Earth orbit to conduct experiments and technology demonstrations across a range of scientific disciplines, including human health, medicine, cell biology, materials and even gastronomy.
One of the main focuses of this research will be to facilitate longer duration human space missions and even habitability in space.
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How Axiom-3 is advancing materials, robotics and Artificial Intelligence
Axiom-3 will see further research into robotic assets that could be used for space exploration and eventually to build infrastructure on planets and asteroids through ESA’s Multi-Avatar and Robots Collaborating with an Intuitive Interface (Surface Avatar) project.
The applications of this experiment will not have to wait until we start building infrastructure on the moon or Marshowever, because its results may also benefit science on Earth, for example in arctic exploration, search and rescue techniques in disaster zones and undersea maintenance.
For microgravity building mechanisms, future space missions will not only require builders, but also revolutionary building materials. The Innovative Research on Novel Space Alloys (UYNA) mission aims to test medium-entropy and high-entropy alloys, characterized by their high strength, stiffness and corrosion resistance. These alloys, scientists say, can be used to build infrastructure in space and beyond World in the aviation, automotive, energy and medical industries.
The services of the Italian Space Operations Center (ISOC) for the ISS experiment carried out during the ISS two-week mission focus on space safety by developing catalogs and algorithms capable of improving real-time space awareness. ISOC will use systems already in place at the ISS to process the data needed to help the space station avoid collisions with nearby objects in low-Earth orbit.
Turkey’s Vokalkord experiment on Axiom-3 will continue the development of an artificial intelligence system capable of detecting more than 70 types of diseases by analyzing the sounds of speech and coughing. By testing this system in microgravity, it will be possible to validate Vokalkord as a system that could be used to remotely monitor the health of astronauts.
“Our astronaut [Alper Gezeravci] not only to conduct experiments in space, but the hope and dream of our entire nation,” said the project manager of the TÜBİTAK Space Technologies Research Institute, Ömer Atas, during the press conference explaining the importance of this mission.
Human health in free space,
One of the main themes of the predecessor missions of Axion-3, the commercial projects Axiom-1 and Axiom-2, to advance our understanding of human health in space. With Ax-3, this is set to continue.
Projects pushing the boundaries of this investigation include experiments led by the Italian Air Force (ItAF) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), such as one that will look at the vascular health and reactivity of astronauts before, during and after. space flight.
This experiment will take readings on the Axiom-3 crew, then the results will be compared with measurements from non-orbital flight personnel to better understand how the vascular system – made up of the vessels that carry blood – during space missions. This is information that will benefit future long-duration human spaceflight missions, whenever they begin to occur.
Another Italian-led health project that will be carried out during the Axiom-3 mission is the study of amyloid beta proteins (Aβ), which disrupt the normal folding of proteins and are associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The aim of the scientists behind this mission is to see how microgravity could affect the normal folding and unfolding of proteins in the body; such tendencies may lead to the formation and aggregation of misfolded proteins. This could help identify whether astronauts on long-duration space missions are at greater risk of neurodegeneration.
The ESA will be studying the loss of bone density as a result of long periods in space and will look for traces of gases that astronauts are exposed to during missions on the ISS. It is likely that these gases would be present during other future space missions.
However, it is not just physical health that the Axiom-3 mission is collecting important data on. An ESA experiment carried out during the crew’s two-year stay on the ISS will investigate the impact of architectural settings on the psychology of astronauts, including their cognitive part. performance levels, stress levels, and stress recovery rates. The experiment will determine whether these factors are different in remote space environments compared to remote environments here on Earth.
“ÚOS is excited about this mission, and for us, about the collaboration with Space Axiom It’s really a great opportunity to expand our access to space and especially to the ISS which we already have a lot of legacy,” said Julia Weis, ESA’s ISS Integration and Utilization Planning Team Leader. “So it’s a good example this is how the ISS is it can be used as a test bed for future space exploration activities.”
Bringing human health progress down to Earth
The science produced during the Axiom-3 mission will have several important applications in human health here on Earth, including the treatment of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
“The ongoing Cancer in Leo project from the Sanford Stem Cell Institute is studying tumor organelles in microgravity with the aim of identifying early warning signs of cancer to predict and prevent this disease and accelerate opportunities to develop new cancer therapies development for patients here on. Earth,” explained Jana Stoudemire, Axiom Space’s Director of In-Space Manufacturing.
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Stoudemire also explained that the Axiom-3 mission will continue the work of the National Stem Cell Foundation’s Cosmic Brain Organoids project. This project studies small 3D aggregates of nerve cells that can be used to track the development and degeneration of the human nervous system, known as “brain organisms.”
Brain organisms studied as part of the Axiom-3 mission will be derived from stem cells of patients with Parkinson’s disease and primary progressive multiple sclerosis to discover new cellular pathways that will help us better understand and treat neurodegenerative diseases in the world, according to Stoudemire. .
“Through these partnerships, we are working to create diverse and robust new markets in the commercial space economy that will generate significant economic and social benefits around the world,” Stoudemire concluded.
