Researchers test health technology on zero gravity flights with NASA

A team of doctors and scientists from the University of Oxford have tested a tissue oxygen monitor in microgravity for the first time.

Dr Thomas Smith, who leads Oxford’s Aerospace Medicine Research Group and led the research, presented the results at an international conference on aviation and space medicine in Oxford earlier today.

The team studied a new portable monitoring device on special test flights in which an aircraft carries out a series of steep climbs and dives called parabolas.

Each parabola provides a short period of microgravity, just like the weightlessness astronauts experience in space. Unfortunately parabolic flights can also lead to motion sickness, and the aircraft is nicknamed the vomit comet.

The study was conducted in Houston, USA, in collaboration with NASA. The team floated through 160 parabolas, and the study was a success.