Feb. 20 - A new mission for Mouse Telemetry on Bion (MTB) to have a better understanding of the effects of weightlessness on living things

The French-Russian project MTB is a series of missions aiming to better understand the effects of space traveling on living things.

In direct continuity of the first one

In 2013, at CNES’ request, EREMS designed, built and qualified the MTB recorder registering the cardiovascular parameters of 5 of the 15 on the first mission. Sent aboard the bio-satellite Bion-M N°1, the rodents had then stayed 30 days in space before successfully returning on earth.

Larger-scale experiments

NASA’s 2017 announcement of a new BION-M N°2 mission seems to have reinforced the French-Russian cooperation’s will in order to reiterate these experiments. CNES has already signed ab agreement with the Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS and started working, in 2019, on the MTB-2 instrument based on the previous mission. This time, 75 mice should be sent to the Van Allen belt between 500 to 620 miles above the earth and will be exposed to much higher radiation than the ISS is currently facing. EREMS is currently working on the new version of the MTB equipment. The launch of BION-M N°2 by a Soyuz launcher is scheduled for 2022.