Turkey's second astronaut: Tuva Cihangir Atasever's space journey to take place

Turkey's second astronaut, Tuva Cihangir Atasever, will conduct his suborbital research flight today. The astronaut suit worn by Atasever, who will carry out a scientific mission, has been specially revised to carry equipment for 3 experiments.

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Turkey's second astronaut: Tuva Cihangir Atasever's space journey to take place

The aircraft carrying the "VSS Unity" suborbital vehicle from Virgin Galactic, which Tuva Cihangir Atasever will be aboard, is scheduled to take off from the Spaceport facility in New Mexico at approximately 08:30 local time (17:30 Turkish time).

The 6-person "Galactic 07" crew, which includes Turkey's second astronaut Atasever as a research astronaut, will consist of two private astronauts from the US, one from Italy, and 2 pilots.

In the flight, which is planned to last approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes, the "VSS Unity" suborbital vehicle is expected to reach an altitude of approximately 45,000 feet via the carrier aircraft, and then reach an altitude of approximately 90 kilometers by igniting its hybrid rocket motor.

Atasever is planned to conduct 7 scientific experiments in a microgravity environment during the approximately 3-minute free-fall phase.

FROM RADIATION ANALYSIS TO INSULIN PEN TEST: THE EXPERIMENTS

The astronaut suit worn by Atasever, who will carry out a scientific mission, has been specially revised to carry equipment for 3 experiments.

Within the scope of the brain imaging experiment called "BEACON," Atasever will wear a near-infrared spectroscopy measurement device on his head throughout all phases of the flight.

Thus, blood flow in the prefrontal cortex region of the brain and the dynamics of spinal fluid will be examined. In addition to this experiment, the psychological changes and transformations caused by seeing the Earth from a distant point will also be analyzed by collecting samples from Atasever.

With the IvmeRad Radiation Dosimeter experiment, information on how much radiation is exposed will be obtained. In this way, it will be possible to make predictions about how much radiation individuals who will go to space stations in later processes will be exposed to in real-time.

DOSE TRANSFER EFFICIENCY WILL BE TESTED

With the Insulin Pen Test in Space, a joint experiment by the Turkish Space Agency (TUA) and Axiom Space, 2 different insulin pens placed in a special box will be carried into space, and the dose transfer efficiency in this environment will be tested for the first time. Thus, the first trial regarding the effectiveness of treatment methods that can be applied if individuals with diabetes go to space stations to be built in Earth's orbit in the coming years will have been carried out.

Within the scope of Vesicle Analysis in Suborbital Flight, extracellular vesicles found in biological samples collected from Atasever before and after the flight will be isolated via a specially developed microfluidic chip. In this way, the potential for developing certain adaptation therapies that can be applied before astronauts go to space in the future will be investigated.

The MESSAGE, METABOLOM, and MIYELOID experiments, which were part of the mission of Turkey's first astronaut Alper Gezeravcı, will also be applied in the Suborbital Research Mission that Atasever will carry out.

News Source: AA