ELITE S2 – An Instrument for Motion Analysis on Board the International Space Station
- Paper number
IAC-09.A2.6.6
- Author
Mr. Gianluca Neri, Kayser Italia Srl, Italy
- Coauthor
Dr. Gabriele Mascetti, Italian Space Agency (ASI), Italy
- Coauthor
Dr. Vittorio Cotronei, Italian Space Agency (ASI), Italy
- Coauthor
Mr. Valfredo Zolesi, Kayser Italia Srl, Italy
- Coauthor
Dr. Salvatore Pignataro, Italian Space Agency (ASI), Italy
- Year
2009
- Abstract
Motion analysis in space has been rarely performed although it can be extremely useful in many fields. Basic neurophysiology is only one of these, but also human factors and countermeasure exercise, as well as other physiology fields can take advantage of it. This paper describes the activities for utilization and control of ELITE S2 on board the International Space Station (ISS). ELITE S2 is a payload of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) for quantitative human movement analysis in weightlessness. Within the frame of a bilateral agreement with NASA for the utilization of the ISS, since 2002 ASI has funded the realization of a number of facilities, enabling different scientific experiments on board the ISS. ELITE S2 has been developed by the ASI contractor Kayser Italia, delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in 2006 for pre-flight processing, launched in 2007 by the Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-118), integrated in the U.S. lab and used during the Increments 16 and 17 through 2008. The first long time experiments were conducted by using the ELITE-S system installed on the Russian Space Station MIR during the mission EUROMIR ’95, performing a number of different neurophysiology experiments. Three years later, the Kinelite system was flown on Neurolab ’98 mission and performing ball catching experiments. After the success of these missions, the scientific community pushed towards the request of an updated version of the system to be used on the ISS. The instrument working principle is based on shape detection of passive markers applied on selected body landmarks, illuminated by infrared light and captured by video cameras. The ELITE S2 flight segment comprises equipment mounted into an Express Rack and a number of stowed items to be deployed for experiment execution (video cameras and accessories). The ground segment consists in an User Support Operations Center (based at Kayser Italia) enabling real-time payload control and a number of User Home Bases (located at the ASI and PIs premises), for the scientific assessment of the experiment execution. Two scientific protocols on reaching and cognitive processing have been successfully performed in five sessions involving two ISS crewmembers: IMAGINE 2 (University Tor Vergata, Rome) and MOVE (Bioengineering Department, Politecnico of Milan). Although this is an Italian development, ASI is open to collaboration with research organizations and other Space Agencies interested into motion analysis investigations, in order to integrate the current payload exploitation program.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-09.A2.6.6.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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