Published: 7/24/1998

Russian and Austrian experts are planning the joint health monitoring of future crews of the International Space Station (ISS), and about ten joint studies are being considered. A tentative accord on space collaboration was made at an international conference on space medicine and biology which finished recently in Moscow. "So far eight joint projects for the ISS have been selected and have been through expert evaluation, but research subjects will be expanding," the director of Moscow's Institute of Biomedical Problems, Anatoly Grigoryev, said. He commented that Russia's ISS segment would carry equipment for the continuous monitoring of the cosmonauts' health, with findings to be transmitted to ground-based experts. Scientists also plan fundamental research on the effects of long-term exposure to space on the cardiovascular, endocrine, nervous and locomotive systems and on the body fluid balance, brain and sensory systems. Another area of research is radiation safety in space. The president of the Austrian Society of Space Medicine, Borbert Vana, said that Russian and Austrian equipment which had been used on Mir would be flown on the ISS during its first three years in orbit. As for the partners' financial relations, he said there would be scientific co-operation where parties pay for their studies. Russian and Austrian space medicine experts have been successfully co-operating for over ten years. Several major projects completed in orbit in that time include an AustroMir programme, which was the mission of Austrian astronaut Franz Feebeck on Mir in 1991, and 12 unique joint studies during the year-long mission of Russian cosmonaut physician Valery Polyakov. (AS798.4) (VZ)

Article ID: 228