Capsule Bion-M: return to earth of the "menagerie of space!" - Maxisciences

a mission for a month in space, Bion-M capsule returned to earth Sunday as planned, in the Orenburg region, Russia. On board, passengers of all hair and all leathers, to hits, cosmonauts like no other

Who would not want to be a little mouse to see how the occupants of the Bion-M spacecraft lived their landing Sunday at 1200 Kilometers in the region of Moscow, Orenburg

Why? Because wild capsule equipped cosmonauts are funny: many living organisms, 8 gerbils, 15 lizards, 20 snails and 45 mice! A crew hairs and scales closely monitored by video cameras, which had a one month mission in space.

They will all be brought to Moscow for an evaluation of their living space and a thorough study of the physical impact of the mission on their metabolism.

“ This is the first time that animals were sent alone in space for a long time ” told state television Rossiya Vladimir Sychov, the Institute of Problems biomedical program partner.

heart of the study conducted with the French CNRS, the problem of life in zero gravity and its effect on the body: “ it comes to determining how our body adapts to conditions of weightlessness and understand what it takes to ensure the survival during long flights over “explained Valery Abrachkine, program director of the Russian Space Center before the start of the capsule.

For its part, the CNRS he said yesterday that the program “ will take a further and decisive step in human adaptation to weightlessness .”

Occupants under close surveillance

During their journey, the occupants of Bion-M were strictly observed and studied with devices for example, to identify some mice to compare, retrospectively, with congeners remained, they on Earth. In Focus: the impact of weightlessness on their tissues

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Set in dedicated areas, this “menagerie of space” was constantly monitored by video cameras.

Unfortunately, some organizations have been able to return safe and sound this journey, stressed the takeoff, the living conditions of weightlessness, and the dropping of the capsule.

status of other occupants living income as fish eggs, seeds, plants and other gerbils will therefore now undergo a battery of tests to determine the effect of weightlessness on living in their bodies.

A new journey in preparation

But experience does not end with the return of the capsule Bion-M on the earthly ground yesterday. New trips are planned, as indicated Guillemette Gauquelin-Koch, Head of Life Sciences at CNES, told AFP: “ Another flight is planned for next year, but we do not yet know what passengers will be (…) perhaps microorganisms … . “

As a reminder, the last mission “Bion” space on the trip had to be alive in 1996. At the time, a rhesus monkey, geckos and amphibians animals were then aboard the capsule for a mission that lasted 15 days.