Meeting the challenge: a survey of capabilities planned to meet future space biology research needs

NASA/Ames Research Center Life Sciences has supported a large number of experiments and observations directed at understanding how biological systems perform or change in the microgravity space environment. These campaigns have been accomplished on a wide range of space-based platforms beginning with the Bion/Cosmos unmanned satellites and including the Space Shuttle middeck, Spacelab, SpaceHab, the Russian Space Station Mir and in the near future, the International Space Station (ISS). To further build upon this past experience, and to continue to make contributions towards the goals of the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) enterprise, a number of experiment systems and infrastructure are in development in an attempt to provide a comprehensive set of opportunities and capabilities to enable research into biological systems in space. Life support systems, or habitats are geared towards the maintenance of a wide range of biological specimens onboard ISS. Augmented with a set of ancillary equipment and sufficient expendable resources and crew time, researchers will have a robust set of tools to continue biological and physiological experiments in space.