Facility Uniqueness

The only platform in Europe allowing scientists to carry out investigations using aquatic organisms under different levels of hypergravity or simulated microgravity.

Possibility of performing experiments with four species of amphibians (Xenopus laevis, Xenopus tropicalis, Pleurodeles waltl, Ambystoma mexicanum). Consequently, investigators can choose the more adapted species to meet the objectives of their project.

Amphibian hosting area close to experimental room. This allows on-side production of embryos/tadpoles at the developmental stage required by investigators. Furthermore, this allows easily bringing back animals in conventional conditions at the end of the experiment to study the reversibility of changes induced by hypergravity/microgravity. The analysis of reversibility is also possible for mice subjected to different levels of hypergravity (hosting close to rodent rotor).

The use of miniaquariums conceived to allow the development of amphibian embryos onboard the ISS make it possible to prepare space experiments (e.g. carrying out experiments in hypergravity and/or simulated microgravity to demonstrate the feasibility of the study before its implementation in the ISS) but also to complement inflight experiments by comparing the effects of micro- and hypergravity.

Gondolas to centrifuge other types of miniaquaria that could be developed for future space experiments could easily be constructed.

The installation of small cell culture incubators in gondolas of the rodent rotor is planned.

Platform usable, in the future, to subject small fish (e.g. zebrafish), or fish embryos, to different levels of hypergravity or to simulated microgravity.