• Home
•  » Services
•  » CALMspace
•  » Enhanced OSTeoporosis Experments on Orbit (eOSTEO)

Enhanced OSTeoporosis Experments on Orbit (eOSTEO)

The effect of gravity on bone loss is a key area of interest for the space community, particularly since up to 10 per cent of an astronaut's bone mass can be lost in a three-month mission. With space exploration targeting longer duration missions at farther destinations, understanding the biological mechanisms and finding countermeasures to astronaut bone loss has been identified as a priority not only within Canada's Scientific Community, but also for that of its international partners. The United States has specifically identified astronaut bone loss as a key area for research in its forward plan, and continued collaborations with Canada have demonstrated this as a priority for the European Space Agency as well.

OSTEO set the benchmark for Canadian bone research on orbit, flying two missions on the Shuttle. Following its success with the first mission on STS-95 with John Glenn, the OSTEO payload was flown a second time on the tragic Columbia STS-107 mission. Complementing the OSTEO payload containing Canadian science on STS-107 was a second OSTEO payload containing the European ERISTO experiments.

eOSTEO raised the benchmark through full automation, higher media capacity, waste media sampling, and better preservation of the biological samples prior to return to earth. Two eOSTEO payloads flew on the Russian FOTON-M3 mission, launched on a Soyuz rocket in 2007. Six experiments in 24 bioreactor modules were flown during this mission, containing research from Canada, France and Italy. eOSTEO is now poised for upgrade, to allow it to take up residence on ISS for future bone loss experiments. Watch for exciting new opportunities in this field of research through eOSTEO’s ongoing legacy, and with the next generation of cell culture payloads, CCAP.

eOSTEO Brochure