Bioastronautics is the study associated with the support of life in space, including the design of payloads, space habitats, and life support systems. IIAS works with Final Frontier Design to test and evaluate commercial spacesuits and their operability within analog environments. IIAS conducts bioastronautics research including evaluations of novel space suits and associated technologies developed within the program. through a multi-year research and evaluation program to evaluate spacesuit functionality, operational envelope, prototype suit/seat interface, seat ingress and egress operations, interface with biometric monitoring and communications systems, and CO2 washout tests. Suits tested by IIAS, such as those developed by Final Frontier Design, are now in the process of certification according to the NASA flight certification standards.
What is Bioastronautics?
Research Concentrations
IVA Space Suit Test and Evaluation
The IIAS Space Suit Evaluation Program tests and evaluates Intra-Vehicular Activity (IVA) space suit designs through research on microgravity, high-altitude, high-G, and post-landing environment test beds.
Post-Landing Human Performance Research
IIAS and Survival Systems USA have jointly developed a facility to research human performance in analog environments to the landing and post-landing phase of human space missions, with a special emphasis on contingency operations. The associated educational program is designed exclusively for IIAS members.
Human Factors Research
IIAS is involved in a variety of research, including aerospace physiology and human performance research. These tests are designed to study the diversity of physiological and psychological responses to spaceflight analog conditions.
EVA Space Suit Test and Evaluation
IIAS students take lessons-learned from operational space medicine and planetary field geology research activities and re-create the tools and procedures at our gravity-offset laboratory. Here, EVA space suit prototypes may be evaluated in a controlled environment. IIAS’s gravity-offset system is a two-axis system that may simulate any gravity level between 1-0G including lunar and Martian gravity levels.
EVA Tool Development
IIAS students concentrate on design considerations for EVA systems and tools for conducting planetary field geology. The members are then able to consider the constraints placed by human factors, the EVA environment, and science tasks upon the design and implementation of EVA suits, tools, and procedures for effective and efficient field science operations on planetary surfaces. These tools and procedures are later evaluated in a gravity-offset laboratory. IIAS students also evaluate tool designs in the controlled environment of IIAS’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
Directorship
Dr. Aaron Persad, Center Director
Dr. Aaron Persad is a researcher in Space Sciences with 15 years of experience in the field. He leads various Space Science projects such as studies of the behavior of water in low-gravity environments, how to harvest water from the Moon to support long-duration human space missions, the performance of organic-based solar cells in the stratosphere, testing the next generation of space suits, and many others. His experiments and payloads have been performed in drop towers, stratospheric balloons, reduced gravity aircraft, and the International Space Station.