Cardiospace French Chinese Cooperation in Gravitational Physiology
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1
Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales, France
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2
China Astronaut Research and Training Center, China
A. COOPERATION FRAMEWORK AND SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES
France and China have signed a cooperation framework agreement on the peaceful uses of outer space in 1997. In a few years, a long-term cooperation in space physiology has been developed between French Space Agency (CNES) and the Astronaut Center of China (ACC): following a bedrest organized by ACC in 2007, it was decided in 2012 to fly a medical equipment provided by CNES, during a Chinese human space flight. It became the project Cardiospace, designed to study how the cardiovascular system adapts during human spaceflight.
Cardiospace scientific cooperation focusses on cutaneous micro-circulation and macro-circulation. Cutaneous micro-circulation is interesting by itself because of its extent and its role in thermoregulation and its way to reflect the general micro-circulation. Macro-circulation is studied along with its morphological aspects.
B. CARDIOSPACE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
CNES coordinated the development of Cardiospace equipment, a unique system integrating and synchronizing different medical instruments that provide standard cardio-vascular parameters (continuous blood pressure, respiratory rate, and electrocardiogram) together with more specific measurements: cutaneous microcirculation with a laser-dopler device and macro-circulation with a sonographer (Fig. 1). It has to be emphasized that the development of a laser-doppler for use in space had never been done before.
C. SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
Mid-September 2016, the Chinese Space Laboratory, TianGong-2, was launched, carrying a broad range of payloads including Cardiospace equipment that was used successfully by the two Taikonauts of the Shenzhou 11 mission (figure 2).
Thanks to Cardiospace, for the first time during a space flight, endothelial vascular impairments were observed at the cutaneous microcirculation level (see micro-circulation protocol, Fig. 3).
Complementary to the space mission, a second model of Cardiospace was used for ground trials as part of a 180-day confinement experiment organized by ACC in Shenzhen (Fig. 4). The objective was to isolate the confinement factor in space flight and thus complement the measurements carried out in orbit. Five French scientific teams participated to this experiment to study cardio-vascular system but also back pain, psychological and ethological factors.
D. FUTURE COOPERATION
The success of Cardiospace development and use on-board Tiangong-2 offers the prospect of a more challenging project, Cardiopace-2. The development of this new equipment in cooperation between ACC and CNES is planned from 2018 to 2021 for utilization onboard the future Chinese Space Station. Such a project would allow to consolidate the scientific results obtained on Tiangong-2 by acquiring a more representative base of scientific data as operations on board of the Chinese station are planned at least for 10 years. Instruments that have never been used in space are also foreseen to explore new fields of research.
Keywords:
Cardiospace,
Gravitational physiology,
French-Chinese Cooperation,
microcirculation (skin),
instrumentation
Conference:
39th ISGP Meeting & ESA Life Sciences Meeting, Noordwijk, Netherlands, 18 Jun - 22 Jun, 2018.
Presentation Type:
Extended abstract
Topic:
International Cooperation and Space Agency Programs
Citation:
LLORET
J,
Arnaud
L,
Gauquelin
G,
Ming
Y,
YIN
X and
LI
Y
(2019). Cardiospace French Chinese Cooperation in Gravitational Physiology.
Front. Physiol.
Conference Abstract:
39th ISGP Meeting & ESA Life Sciences Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2018.26.00046
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Received:
02 Dec 2018;
Published Online:
16 Jan 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mr. Jean-Christophe LLORET, Centre National D'Etudes Spatiales, Paris, France, jean-christophe.lloret@cnes.fr