Bacterial monitoring with adhesive sheet in the international space station-"Kibo", the Japanese experiment module.

Microbiological monitoring is important to assure microbiological safety, especially in long-duration space habitation. We have been continuously monitoring the abundance and diversity of bacteria in the International Space Station (ISS)-"Kibo" module to accumulate knowledge on microbes in the ISS. In this study, we used a new sampling device, a microbe-collecting adhesive sheet developed in our laboratory.