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A habitat at the AGH UST – space simulations in the heart of the university campus

A visualisation of the inside of the habitat. Two people in space suits. One astronaut is waving to the other who sits in a cabin and works on a laptop.

A visualisation by the Space Technology Centre

A habitat at the AGH UST – space simulations in the heart of the university campus

A habitat is being created at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow. This specialised laboratory will facilitate space simulations. Located in the Space Technology Centre building that is under construction, the lab will serve as a place for the development and training of future space personnel. The habitat will also be the first university facility of this kind in which students will be able to test solutions in practice under conditions similar to those in the Moon or Mars missions.

In the emerging space base simulator, students and scientists will test new materials for the construction of space bases, as well as navigation, telecommunication, and biomedical engineering solutions. As Doctor Agata Kołodziejczyk, the co-creator of the laboratory and creator of two existing habitats in Poland, who works in the Space Technology Centre, points out, the habitat will be a testing ground for multifarious research projects that our students will come up with. Therefore, the habitat will also study relationships and social issues, group dynamics, and decision-making processes, as well as the division of roles and tasks between participants.

The AGH UST habitat will focus on investigating the equipment used in space missions, including on-board components that use artificial intelligence, but also water purification and waste management solutions. Under safe laboratory conditions, researchers will analyse reactions to stressful situations and various sound and visual stimuli, ways to adapt to new and unknown conditions, and separation from daylight. An additional advantage will come in the form of testing new materials and, for example, space suits and equipment used in real missions. Furthermore, the habitat will test its users to determine their ability to cope with limits in access to electricity, water, and other necessities.

A visualisation by the Space Technology Centre

A photo divided in three showing visualisations of different rooms in the space mission habitat.

The equipment and architectural layout of the habitat will force mission participants to work and act actively in a setting completely different from the one they know from Earth. Some tasks will only be possible to complete in an upside down position, which will facilitate the simulation of blood flowing to the head, which happens in zero gravity. To better mirror a space adapted to zero gravity, the habitat will be equipped with ceiling ladders, suspended passages, and narrow tunnels, which are designed to mimic the conditions of a space ship.

The new facility will feature a Mission Control Room, in which the employees and students from the Space Technology Centre will be able to supervise the AGH UST satellite missions. The Mission Control Room will also be the place to constantly monitor the work and activity of analogue astronauts lodged in the habitat. A separate controlling team will monitor and verify the biological rhythm of mission participants and the parameters related to their physical and psychological conditions.

To recreate the conditions on a real mission quite faithfully, the AGH UST habitat will be divided into several separate sections, in which students will be sleeping, researching, and leading their daily lives – analogously to a real space mission. A nearly 100 square-metre habitat will be cut off from daylight, and the entire surface will be divided into the following modules: laboratory, kitchen, sanitation facilities, dormitory, and gym. The average duration of a mission will be about 7 days, although there are longer projects in store. In this time, six participants will carry out research and work simultaneously in the habitat.

Another visualisation of one of the rooms in the habitat. It resemles the inside of a spaceship.

A visualisation by the Space Technology Centre

For the AGH UST students and scientists who will be taking part in the simulations, the time spent on this practical education will also be an opportunity to gather materials for future publications or to develop their own projects.

Thanks to the creation of this habitat, we are expanding our university offer, which will definitely be appealing to scientists from around the world, or universities within UNIVERSEH' (European Space University for Earth and Humanity, a project that brought together universities from Europe that focus on developing research and education in the field of space engineering). 'It is worth remembering that the space industry grows dynamically and for scientists, the possibility to participate in an analogue space mission is not only an interesting adventure, but most of all an extraordinary privilege and an opportunity to put to the test everything they had been working on in their laboratories for years. The AGH UST habitat will also be an example of an entirely new education model – learning through practice, and the first laboratory of this type among Polish universities’, emphasises Dr Kołodziejczyk.

Participants in analogue space missions will gain valuable experience, which can be useful in research centres related to the space sector, including the European Space Agency, NASA, and other prominent laboratories of the world, such as CERN. The priority of participating in a simulation of a space mission remains with the AGH UST students and employees, who actively work in student research clubs that focus on space-related topics or study related sciences. The new building of the Space Technology Centre will be ready to use at the beginning of 2024. First analogue astronauts will start their missions in spring.

Poland is a country unique on a European scale in terms of the number of laboratories in which space missions can be simulated. At the moment, as many as two habitats are fully operational. The Lunares Laboratory, located in the north of Poland, and the Analog Astronaut Training Center near Krakow, whose owner is Dr Agata Kołodziejczyk, a neurobiologist, astrobiologist, initiator, and implementer of the idea to create analogue bases for space mission simulations in Poland. Dr Kołodziejczyk worked for the European Space Agency, she is a board member of the World Research Center, and president of Advanced Concepts in a private space agency The Valles Marineris. She authored educational and scientific publications on space biology and neurobiology.

Stopka