BIOBOX6 - The first flight of the new BIOBOX on FOTON M3 in September 2007
- Paper number
IAC-07-A2.3.03
- Author
Mr. Ulrich Kuebler, EADS Astrium Space Transportation, Germany
- Year
2007
- Abstract
ESA’s BIOBOX incubator system has a proven history like no other existing life science facility. It is the only facility designed to fly on unmanned Russian capsule missions (3 missions logged) and also onboard the US space shuttle (2 Spacehab missions, STS95 and STS107). 2 FMs were built originally. The FM1 was lost during a FOTON capsule recovery accident, the FM spare unit, subsequently used for the shuttle missions was destroyed with the Columbia disaster.
The BIOBOX was developed as an autonomous version of ESA’s manually operated BIORACK facility which flew also 6 times between 1985 and 1997. Both facilities are based on the modular accommodation of experiments in standard experiment containers (EC Type I). A new updated BIOBOX6, which was ordered by ESA as replacement for the old BIOBOX is presently readied by Astrium for a flight with the FOTON M3 mission, scheduled for September of 2007.
BIOBOX 6 is continuing today the EC Type I experiment standard together with ESA’s KUBIK incubator for Soyuz missions to the International Space Station, bringing it now to a total of more than 20 missions and 100 individual experiments. Like for the previous missions BIOBOX6 is mainly focusing on the understanding of µg and radiation effects on bone cells.
The key technical features of BIOBOX6 are: - 2 MDL size incubators with variable-g centrifuge - Exchangeable experiment platform for variable experiment accommodation, standard platform for 32 EC (ratio 1g : µg, 1:1) - Temperature range 4 to 40 °C - Interfaces compatible with for FOTON, shuttle and ISS accommodation - Fully automated processing of experiment units - Telemetry and onboard data storage
- Abstract document