NewSpace: microgravity laboratories - modus operandi

Be it in the managerial, commercial or technological field, innovation drives business. Of course, you need to have a vision, a nose for current trends, but you must also have the capacity to put that innovation into action. Every day, space agencies around the world enable creative experiments in space to take wing, for a wide range of clients.

NewSpace , a natural evolution of the space ecosystem, encourages and supports the growing involvement of a private commercial segment , accessible to the largest possible number of actors.

“To support growth in Europe, we’re making our knowledge and technologies available to actors outside the space sector,” declares Jan Woerner, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) .

The International Space Station (ISS) has a wealth of scientific research equipment installed, both in the pressurised parts of the station, and on pallets exposed to the vacuum of space. They can be:

• multi-purpose equipment such as freezers;

• glove boxes;

• X-ray equipment;

• state-of-the-art microscopes. The microscope in the Light Microscopy Module (LMM) has, since 2017, brought the possibility of making observations in three dimensions, while the miniaturised fluorescence microscope (FLUMIAS) can be used to observe living cells. The ability to send live images from space has made a crucial contribution to the understanding of how living things adapt to microgravity;

• minilaboratories dedicated to biology such as greenhouses (Veggie), aquariums or incubators ( Kubik , ESA’s small temperature controlled incubator);

• telemetry equipment recording a large number of parameters ranging from monitoring developments in the experiment to measuring the cosmic radiation and galactic cosmic radiation to which it is exposed;

• equipment available for human physiological research to measure the effects of extended stays in space.

Space missions are monitored from control centres on the ground, which provide support for the crew and help run these microgravity laboratories . Space agencies are continually developing new equipment to meet the requirements of the new experiments. While private investment conditions are favourable, working in microgravity presents different challenges that make even a...