From September 20 to 27, 2024, Sarah Solbiati, research fellow at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering – Politecnico di Milano, participated as an analogue astronaut in the Mission 15 Biosense mission. The goal of this mission was to test advanced physiological monitoring devices for the crew under conditions of isolation and confinement, simulating the challenges of future space missions.
The seven-day mission involved three crew members, including General Roberto Vittori, an astronaut of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), who participated as visiting astronaut. The participation of Dr. Solbiati has been partially funded by ASI, in the context of the research project Kinosomno, coordinated by Prof. Enrico Caiani from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering – Politecnico di Milano. The team operated in the Hydronaut DeepLabH03 habitat, located on the campus of the Czech Technical University in Prague. This environment, with its 8 m² of living space, reproduces the conditions of isolation, confinement and reduced sensory input that astronauts experience in space stations or lunar habitats.
The main goal of the Politecnico di Milano research group was to monitor the participants’ circadian rhythms and cardiac activity, with particular attention to the effects of isolation and alterations in the light-dark cycle. Two crew members were monitored continuously, both during daily activities and exercise protocols. Monitoring included the recording of electrocardiographic and cardiac mechanics (i.e., seismocardiography) signals via wearable devices, collecting data before, during and after the mission.
The data collected will be analysed using advanced algorithms to extract biomarkers of cardiac electro-mechanical activity. Subsequently, the results will be compared with the scientific literature and with data already obtained on 11 subjects during previous missions of the Analog Astronaut Training Centre (AATC) in Krakow, Poland, in which Dr. Solbiati participated.
Sarah Solbiati is a post-doc research fellow at the Politecnico di Milano, where she works in the SmartEyewearLab and D-Hygea Lab, focusing in monitoring physiological parameters through wearable technologies, and in the development of digital solutions for health prevention, respectively. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, she focused her studies on space physiology and on the measurement of biomarkers for cardiovascular health under conditions of microgravity and simulated isolation. In addition to her research role, she is an analogue astronaut at the AATC and Hydronaut facilities, and since 2021 she has been participating in several isolation missions that mimic the conditions of future space and lunar missions to study their effects on the crew.
Photo curtesy of Petr Toman (Hydronaut Project - Little Moon City Prague).