Hypergravity access awarded to Bolivian and Macau teams

The second round of Fellowship Programme on the Large Diameter Centrifuge Hypergravity Experiment Series (HyperGES), saw access awarded to teams from Universidad Católica Boliviana ‘San Pablo’ in Bolivia and Macau University of Science and Technology of Macau, a special administrative region of China.

Both projects are related to life sciences, a field that benefits greatly from the opportunity to freely augment gravity levels. The project of Universidad Católica Boliviana ‘San Pablo’, proposed by an all-female team, will examine the effect of hypergravity in the break-up of human red blood cells under strain to gain an improved understanding of anaemia in space. The team will also highlight the efforts of Bolivian women in the space field.

Macau University of Science and Technology will analyse the medical and biotechnological potential of fungi for future space exploration. Both teams aim to generate knowledge and help create solutions for sustainable development and human wellbeing.

Part of UNOOSA’s Access to Space for All initiative, HyperGES allows selected teams to conduct hypergravity experiments at the Large Diameter Centrifuge (LDC) facility at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre, ESTEC, in the Netherlands.

This 8 m-diameter four-arm centrifuge gives researchers access to a range of hypergravity up to 20 times Earth gravity for weeks or months at a time. At its fastest, the centrifuge rotates at up to 67 revs per minute, with its six gondolas placed at different points along its arms weighing in at 130 kg, and each capable of accommodating 80 kg of payload.

Based within a scifi-style white dome, the LDC has been a place of pilgrimage for European researchers performing a wide range of physics, biology and materials experiments.

Head of ESA’s ESTEC establishment and ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality Dietmar Pilz said: “We’re grateful to UNOOSA for their work to widen access to our Large Diameter Centrifuge through the HyperGES fellowship for student teams worldwide. ESTEC is Europe’s centre of space research, equipped with more than 35 laboratories, including the LDC, which are traditionally available to European industry and academia as well as ESA projects. It is a good initiative to widen that access. The LDC has been in operation at ESTEC for more than 14 years now, but we are still scratching the surface of all the different kinds of hypergravity research that can be performed.”

Academic Director from Universidad Católica Boliviana "San Pablo" Dr. Yolanda Ferreira Arza said: "We are happy and proud that an idea that started as part of the cellular and molecular biology subject in the engineering department of our university is now becoming a research project at the international level.

“We thank UNOOSA and ESA for giving the opportunity to the team members to enrich themselves with the life experience of doing experiments at the international level. As a university, receiving these incentives shows us that we are going in the right pathway. This team is an example for other students, as it shows that science can be done from the early stages of their studies and that the youngest ones can also contribute to their careers, to the university and to the country."

Associate Vice-President of Macau University of Science and Technology, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, and Chair Professor KeKe Zhang added: "It is an honour for our institution to have the project ‘HyperSpacEx – Medical and Biotechnological Potential of Fungi in Hypergravity for Space Exploration’ awarded for the HyperGES. We are very grateful to UNOOSA and ESA for recognising the potential of our team and the relevance of the proposed work. This opens up the opportunity to develop new approaches for using fungi to support space exploration while helping to establish and develop the field of astromycology. Future missions will certainly benefit from results derived from this research.”