Life Support Experiments Of Drosophila Melanogaster And Caenorhabditis Elegans In Spacecraft's Specific Environment

Space environment is complex and characterized by intense radiation, microgravity, microvacuum, no day-night rhythms and extreme temperature, nearly no life can survive in space environments without life support. In space biology research, most of biological samples need to be protected against the influence of nonexperimental factors in order to keep samples alive through the whole space experimental process, which is propitious to further study. Thus, including human beings, almost all organisms need life support system in space experiments, it is ground-based life support experiment that supplies the foundations of building space life support system and it is the important precondition and basis in the space biological research system.According to samples' characters and requirements to living environments, as well as to inner environmental parameters of spacecraft and container, we can make sure the specific environmental factors and their value, then through experiments we evaluate the spacecraft environments conditions and test the functions of container. Based on all of these ground-based life support experiments, we can summarize a set of integrated factors of life support system. These factors firstly are basis and foundation for container designation and improvement and secondly ensure samples' living states satisfy science requirements both in and after space experiments. At the same time, these factors also are foundations for the further study.According to the project arrangement of space radiation biology, our samples are D.melanogaster eggs and C.elegans dauer worms, our hardware are Shenzhou spacecraft and SIMBOX supplied by German collaborator. By tests, we analysis and summarize six necessary environmental factors: air pressure, temperature, humidity, oxygen supply, food supply and lighting, and find that oxygen supply is the most important one. We also test the functions of container STM and Type I-container and bring some improved suggestions. Now all of lab's life support experiments are completed and we are going to prepare to integrated experiments in the SIMBOX.