Soyuz Missions Research Articles

Evaluation of techniques for performing cellular isolation and preservation during microgravity conditions.

Genomic and epigenomic studies require the precise transfer of microliter volumes among different types of tubes in order to purify DNA, RNA, or protein from biological samples and subsequently perform analyses of DNA methylation, RNA expression, and chromatin modifications on a genome-wide scale. Epigenomic and transcriptional analyses of human blood cells, for example, require separation of purified cell types to avoid confounding contributions of altered cellular proportions, and long-term preservation of these cells requires their isolation and transfer into appropriate freezing media. There are currently no protocols for these cellular isolation procedures on the International Space Station (ISS). Currently human blood samples are either frozen as mixed cell populations (within the CPT collection tubes) with poor yield of viable cells required for cell-type isolations, or returned under ambient conditions, which requires timing with Soyuz missions. Here we evaluate the feasibility of translating terrestrial cell purification techniques to the ISS. Our evaluations were performed in microgravity conditions during parabolic atmospheric flight. The pipetting of open liquids in microgravity was evaluated using analog-blood fluids and several types of pipette hardware. The best-performing pipettors were used to evaluate the pipetting steps required for peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) isolation following terrestrial density-gradient centrifugation. Evaluation of actual blood products was performed for both the overlay of diluted blood, and the transfer of isolated PBMCs. We also validated magnetic purification of cells. We found that positive-displacement pipettors avoided air bubbles, and the tips allowed the strong surface tension of water, glycerol, and blood to maintain a patent meniscus and withstand robust pipetting in microgravity. These procedures will greatly increase the breadth of research that can be performed on board the ISS, and allow improvised experimentation by astronauts on extraterrestrial missions.

Hardware for biological microgravity experiments in Soyuz missions

CCM produces hardware for biological microgravity experiments since 1982. For three Soyuz missions, CCM provided the experiment hardware in different configurations: TMA-1 “ODISSEA”: Battery powered, autonomous system with experiment units for three biological experiments, each in their own experiment container. TMA-4 “DELTA”: Experiment units and control electronics for four biological experiments in KUBIK. Different hardware configurations and control systems, adapted to the specific requirements for each experiment. TMA-8 mission: Reflight of the TUBUL experiment of the DELTA mission The CCM plungerbox unit is a modular experiment equipment, that can be adapted to the specific requirements of the scientists. Also the mission requirements, such as size and weight limitations, available power and the number of levels of containment are different for each flight. It is the challenge for CCM to provide the optimal hardware configuration, for each space mission, aiming at a maximum scientific result.

The “gene” experiment in the spanish soyuz mission to the ISS. effects of the cold transportation step

If exploration of outer space is going to be a major human enterprise in the future, it is important to establish the nature of the biological response to the space environment. In one of the recent Soyuz missions to serve the ISS, the Spanish Soyuz Mission in October 2003, we sent a group of Drosophila pupae that underwent almost complete development there. Microarray analyses of the RNAs extracted from flies fixed in the ISS revealed that a relatively large set of genes (15% of the total number assayed) suffered a significant expression change in these conditions. Furthermore, the samples had to be transported to the launch site and it was necessary to slow down their development by exposing them to a lower temperature, fully compatible with pupal development. Such a pre- exposure had an effect by itself on the pattern of gene expression observed after pupal development at normal temperature, but the two environmental factors seemed to act synergistically together with the containment in the type I container. These findings indicate the importance of maintaining a vigorous scientific program in the ISS to understand the consequences of the modified environment in outer space on living organisms.

From andromède to delta

This is an information paper describing the operational experience gathered during the ISS Soyuz missions from 2001 through 2004, as viewed by representatives of the ground and the onboard crews. The objective of this paper is to describe the Soyuz Missions from the point of view of the operational crew, both on ground and in orbit, focusing on relevant information that due to various factors is not available to scientists normally. By doing this, it is hoped that scientists preparing new missions, especially Columbus, will be able to take into account these specific operational elements into the preparation and execution of their experiments and thus hopefully help improve the overall efficiency.

The “ageing” experiment in the spanish soyuz mission to the international space station

Human exploration of outer space will eventually take place. In preparation for this endeavour, it is important to establish the nature of the biological response to a prolonged exposure to the space environment. In one of the recent Soyuz Missions to serve the International Space Station (ISS), the Spanish Soyuz mission in October 2003, we exposed four groups of Drosophila male imagoes to microgravity during the almost eleven days of the Cervantes mission to study their motility behaviour. The groups were three of young flies and one of mature flies, In previous space experiments, we have shown that when imagoes are exposed to microgravity they markedly change their behaviour by increasing their motility, especially if subjected to these conditions immediately after hatching. The constraints of the current Soyuz flights made it impossible to study the early posthatching period. A low temperature cold transport was incorporated as a possible way out of this constraint. It turned out that on top of the space flight effects, the cold treatment by itself, modifies the motility behaviour of the flies. Although the four groups increased their motility, the young flies did it in a much lower extent than the mature flies that had not been exposed to the low temperature during transportation. Nevertheless, the flies flown in the ISS are still more active than the parallel ground controls. As a consequence of the lower motility stimulation in this experiment, a likely consequence of the cold transport step, no effects on the life spans of the flown flies were detected. Together with previous results, this study confirms that high levels of motility behaviour are necessary to produce significant decreases in fly longevity.

Hardware development for the Bone Proteomics experiment

This paper gives a quick overview of how various scientific, operational and safety related requirements drove the development of hardware for the Bone Proteomics (BOP) experiment that was conducted on the International Space Station during the Italian Soyuz Mission in 2005. The experiment objectives will be highlighted briefly and design solutions will be presented. Comments will be given regarding the choice of a particular design solution and the impact on the complexity, cost and development time. Conclusions in this paper are based on the experience gained when developing the BOP experiment hardware and other relatively small experiment hardware packages, typical of European Soyuz Missions. The observations should not be extrapolated to large payloads. The objective of this paper is not to produce a recipe for developing experiment hardware; dedicated documents for that purpose are available elsewhere. Rather, the objective is to help others profit from experience gained in the development of relatively small experiment hardware packages, and to highlight where time and cost saving decisions can be made.

The national — esa soyuz missions andromède, marco polo, odissea, cervantes, delta and eneide

From the autumn of 2001 till spring of 2005 a series of six flights to the International Space Station, ISS, were conducted using the Russian Soyuz manned launcher. These flights initially known as ‘taxi-missions’, were characterized by the participation and co-funding from both the European Space Agency, ESA, and the five national delegations from France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands. The national participation was reflected both in the flight of a cosmonaut/astronaut, originating from the country co-sponsoring the flight as well as in the origin of the majority of experiments and other activities carried out during these missions. In these six Soyuz missions: Andromede (October 2001), Marco Polo (April 2002), Odissea (October 2002), Cervantes (October 2003), DELTA (April 2004) and Eneide (April 2005), some more than one hundred experiments were carried out. These experiments covered the areas of basic and applied research and technology in biology, human physiology, fluid and plasma physics, material science and Earth observation. Also a significant number of education activities were part of these missions. This paper gives a complete overview of these missions, of all science, education and related activities performed. The perspectives of these activities in the light of the space exploration programs in the XXI century and some of the uncertainties and paradoxes are discussed.

Sympathetic nervous activity decreases during head down bed rest but not during microgravity

Platelet norepinephrine (NE) and epinephrine (E) were measured as indices of long-term changes in sympathoadrenal activity. Ten normal healthy subjects were studied before and during head-down bed rest (HDBR) of 2 weeks duration, as well as during an ambulatory study period of a similar length. Platelet NE and E concentrations were studied in 5 cosmonauts, who participated in three different Soyuz missions to the International Space Station, 2 weeks before launch, within 12 hours after landing following 11 to 12 days of flight and at least 2 weeks after return to earth. Due to the long half-life of NE and E in platelets (approximately 2 days), data obtained early after landing would still reflect the microgravity state. Platelet NE decreased markedly during HDBR (p<0.001). During micro-gravity platelet NE and E increased in 4 of the 5 cosmonauts. Platelet NE and E concentrations expressed in percentage of pre-flight and pre-HDBR values, respectively, were significantly increased during microgravity as compared to HDBR (NE: 153±28% (mean±SEM) vs. 60±6%, p<0.004; E: 293±85% vs. 90±12%, p<0.01). The increase in platelet NE and E during microgravity is most likely due to an increase in sympathoadrenal activity. The reason why sympathoadrenal activity does not decrease to low levels during microgravity as one would expect remains to be elucidated. HDBR cannot be applied to simulate changes in sympathoadrenal activity during microgravity.

Comparative analysis of Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans gene expression experiments in the European Soyuz flights to the International Space Station

The European Soyuz missions have been one of the main routes for conducting scientific experiments onboard the International Space Station, which is currently in the construction phase. A relatively large number of life and physical sciences experiments as well as technology demonstrations have been carried out during these missions. Included among these experiments are the Gene experiment during the Spanish “Cervantes” Soyuz mission and the ICE-1st experiment during the Dutch “Delta” mission. In both experiments, full genome microarray analyses were carried out on RNA extracted from whole animals recovered from the flight. These experiments indicated relatively large scale changes in gene expression levels in response to spaceflight for two popular model systems, Drosophila melanogaster (Gene) and Caenorabditis elegans (ICE-1st). Here we report a comparative analysis of results from these two experiments. Finding orthologous genes between the fruit fly and the nematode was far from straightforward, reducing the number of genes that we could compare to roughly 20% of the full comparative genome. Within this sub-set of the data (2286 genes), only six genes were found to display identical changes between species (decreased) while 1809 genes displayed no change in either species. Future experiments using ground simulation techniques will allow producing a better, more comprehensive picture of the putative set of genes affected in multicellular organisms by changes in gravity and getting a deeper understanding of how animals respond and adapt to spaceflight.

Soyuz missions and taxi flights. New opportunities for technology development. An example: The ENEIDE mission

The Soyuz vehicle represents today a key Spacecraft: it provides astronaut transfer from the ground to the ISS and it ensures, at the same time, the possibility to escape from it. A Soyuz capsule therefore has to remain always attached to the ISS to be potentially used as Crew Escape Vehicle in case of need. To maintain the full operability the Soyuz needs to be replaced every six months by a new one. The mission aimed to launch a new spacecraft and to retrieve the “used” one is called Taxi Flight. The Russians, since few years, offer commercial seat available during this mission on the bases of commercial contracts. Several Space Tourists already made use of this opportunity like Dennis Tito or Mark Shuttleworth. But a Taxi Flight is not only a good opportunity for Space Flight; it could represent also a unique chance for scientist and engineers to find new flight opportunities to carry out experiments. It is possible to fly a piece of equipment onboard ISS for up 10 days, with the possibility to have also other resources available, like crew time, telemetry, commanding, etc. Of course to exploit such an opportunity and to develop space hardware, a company willing to carry out its own experiment need to have in-house resource to support the mission. Often the resources are not enough or the specific know-how for a space mission is missing. But today to help the users, very often represented by a SME, there is in ESA a dedicated team, supported by national user support centers, able to transform an idea into a consolidated flying experiment. The paper is aimed at presenting the reference scenario, the approach and methodologies used and offer a guide for future users. The example of three experiments flown in the Soyuz 10S mission is presented together with the strategy used to pass from the idea to the results in less than nine months.

Crystal growth in space

Magterials science in space, including the crystal growth of organic and inorganic materials, is an interesting discipline that dates back to the growth of the first single crystals in space during the Apollo and Soyuz missions. Progress made since then is reviewed and the current goals of today's crystal growth experiments in space are considered. Crystals growth in spae may not be larger or more beautiful than those grown under terrestial conditions, but such experiments can provide answers to basic scientific questions.