David Saint-Jacques, Canada’s next astronaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS), will perform a variety of science experiments during his six month stay including two new health experiments announced today.
Saint-Jacques is scheduled to launch on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS in November of 2018.
Today, while the Canadian Space Agency hosted a two day national forum on space, health and innovation, Saint-Jacques outlined the science experiments he’ll conduct including the two new health experiments; the Immuno Profile experiment and the Vascular Aging experiment.
The Immuno Profile experiment “will investigate and monitor astronauts’ immune systems over long-duration missions on board the ISS. The results may help us understand how certain diseases evolve over time, such as the reactivation of latent viral infections and age-related decreases in immune defences.”
While the Vascular Aging experiment will build “on previous work in space, this experiment will study the impact of weightlessness, nutrition, physical activity and radiation on the cardiovascular system and the onset of insulin resistance in orbit. This collaborative study will be the first of its kind and will provide insights that will maintain crew health and point to important lifestyle factors that can affect us on Earth.”
According to the CSA Saint-Jacques will also “wear a biotechnological device that will eventually improve our ability to monitor the health of astronauts. He will also test a new instrument known as a bio-analyzer, which will perform near real-time analysis of blood.”
The CSA has updated its future experiments section of its website today with the new experiments. Other previously announced experiments including ongoing and past experiments are also available.