BIOLAB, EPU and EMCS for cell culture experiments on the ISS.

Two ESA facilities are under development for biological research on the International Space Station: BIOLAB as part of the European "Columbus" Laboratory and the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS), foreseen for accommodation in the US Lab "Destiny". Both facilities have an incubator (18-40 degrees C) and use standard Experiment Containers, mounted on two centrifuge rotors providing either microgravity or variable g-levels from 0.001 x g to 2.

New facilities and instruments for developmental biology research in space.

Three new ESA facilities will be available for biological experiments in Space, Biopack on the Space Shuttle and two instruments on the International Space Station (ISS): BIOLAB in the European "Columbus" Laboratory and the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) in the US Lab "Destiny". The experiments are housed in standard Experiment Containers, allowing either research in microgravity or acceleration studies with variable g-levels, if mounted on the centrifuges. While Biopack provides only thermal control, BIOLAB and EMCS supply each container with a dedicated atmosphere (controlled CO2, O2 concentration and relative humidity, trace gas removal): EMCS contains also fresh and wastewater reservoirs on its rotors.

Experiments with small animals in BIOLAB and EMCS on the International Space Station.

Two ESA facilities will be available for animal research and other biological experiments on the International Space Station: the European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) in the US Lab "Destiny" and BIOLAB in the European "Columbus" Laboratory. Both facilities use standard Experiment Containers, mounted on two centrifuge rotors allowing either research in microgravity or acceleration studies with variable g-levels from 0.001 to 2.

Spaceflight opportunities on the ISS for plant research--the ESA perspective.

Two ESA facilities will be available for plant research and other biological experiments on the International Space Station: the Modular Cultivation System (MCS) and BIOLAB. While BIOLAB will be launched with the European "Columbus" Module, MCS will be part of the Early Utilisation Agreement with NASA and integrated in the US Lab. Both facilities use standard Experiment Containers, mounted on two centrifuge rotors providing either microgravity or variable g-levels up to 2xg.

The development of spaceflight experiments with Arabidopsis as a model system in gravitropism studies.

Experiments with Arabidopsis have been developed for spaceflight studies in the European Space Agency's Biorack module. The Biorack is a multiuser facility that is flown on the United States Space Shuttle and serves as a small laboratory for studying cell and developmental biology in unicells, plants, and small invertebrates. The purpose of our spaceflight research was to investigate the starch-statolith model for gravity perception by studying wild-type (WT) and three starch-deficient mutants of Arabidopsis.