This a second call for scientific proposals for participation in Bion-M2 biosatellite animal studies. Following request of its partners, Institute for biomedical problems has extended the deadline for submission of the proposals to March 31, 2017. Below you will find brief information about the program.

In 2022, the Federal Space Agency of Russia (Roscosmos) and the Russian Academy of Sciences plan to launch the second unmanned biosatellite of the Bion-M series. The Bion-M2 spacecraft will be launched to a 800-1000 km geocircular orbit for 30 days. Today the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMBP RAS), the lead center responsible for the research program implementation, has initiated the development of the program.

IMBP RAS has the pleasure of inviting you to take part in Bion-M2 animal studies and submit science proposals.

The goal of Bion-M2 animal studies will be to investigate systemic, cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying adaptation of mammals to the combined effects of microgravity, cosmic radiation and other spaceflight factors as well as their readaptation to the terrestrial environment upon return to Earth.

Bion-M2 experiments will be performed on space-flown C57BL/6 mice as well as ground controls, housed in flight habitats and exposed to the simulated flight environment, and vivarium controls.

The investigations will be focused on the central nervous and sensory systems, muscular and skeletal structures, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, water-salt metabolism regulation, immune system, cell biology and regeneration.

The investigations will be performed pre-flight, during animal exposure to the real or simulated flight, and after flight to identify spaceflight effects and their mechanisms as well as the time-course of readaptation. No experimental interventions will be performed in orbit. Biosamples will be collected:

• To detect acute spaceflight effects 1) approximately 2-3 hours after landing at the landing site (optional) and 2) 14-17 hours after landing at IMBP in Moscow;
• To investigate recovery and readaptation to Earth’s gravity: 3) 3 days and 4) 7 days after landing.

Science proposals of up to 10 pages should be submitted to IMBP RAS (bion-m2@imbp.ru) no later than March 31, 2017. Proposals should include a brief background, goals and objectives of the study, methods, minimum/maximum sample size needed, expected results, as well as a program of preflight verification of the experimental design.

The proposals will be reviewed by an ad hoc committee and scored with respect to the following parameters: compliance with the Bion-M2 objectives, novelty and justification, feasibility of implementing proposed experiments on Bion-M2.

Priority will be given to the experiments that can complement each other, thus allowing a comprehensive approach to the study of physiological systems at different levels; the experiments that aim at investigating mechanisms of animal readaptation to Earth’s gravity after an extended spaceflight, as well as to the experiments that will produce data compatible with Bion-M1 results (biosputnik.imbp.ru) to make possible their comparative analysis.

After initial selection the proposed experiments will be integrated into a science research program, which may require modification of the original proposals.