European Space Agency's User Support
Dr. Magdalena Herová is a biologist with the European Space Agency's User Support and Operations Center. She joined ESA after earning her PhD in molecular biology from the University of Zurich.
This Transcript is AI-Generated
Magdalana Herova: They formulate the whole experiment, and it's my job to ask them all the little details that they don't need to put on paper if they do it in the lab. Conducting experiments in space pushes scientists to think about processes in entirely new ways, new ways. So I have to ask all these details to be able to, to plan it on the ISS and to also have a little bit of freedom if something happens.
How do we react?
Micah: Why do we run experiments on the International Space Station, the ISS, what can they reveal about life here on earth or the dream of living permanently among the stars? In this episode, we'll break down how biological experiments are done in space. Tackle the challenges of working in such a unique environment and explore what these experiments could mean for our future.
Dana: I'm Dana K Clone. And I'm Micah Schweitzer. This is Balancing the Future from Metler Toledo. On this show, we delve into the world of science and technology and explore its transformative impact on our lives. Let's jump in.
The first experiments on the ISS were designed to be compact and required minimal intervention. Early experiments included studying how fruit flying nervous systems developed in microgravity or zero gravity. Another explored how this environment impacts protein gene expression in cultured kidney cells, but unexpected temperature fluctuations left.
Micah: The results of these experiments inconclusive, valuable lessons were learned in those early days. And space science has come a long way since Over the past two decades, more than 3,700 experiments have been conducted aboard the ISS. These range from testing how cement could be mixed in space to build moon bases or figuring out how to grow vegetables without sunlight.
But without today's guest and her team, none of these experiments would ever even make it to space. So we support mostly biological experiments, but also other activities that are done on the iss. And uh, more concretely, we are specialists for some incubators, so some biological infrastructure. And if a research group wants to send their experiment to the ISS and use this incubator, for example, that's the voice of Dr.
Dana: Magdalena Harva, a biologist working in the user support and operation centre for the European Space Agency. She spoke with Micah, then we will support them. We will read the, you know, scope of their experiment. We will ask detailed questions so that we can exactly plan that experiment. We will plan a test on Earth to basically do like a dress rehearsal, like eight to Z test, where you aim at really finding any little mistakes that there could be.
Magdalana Herova: Because sending an experiment to the ISS, you only have one goal. So this is unlike in the lab where you plan precisely, but you can still, you know, repeat an experiment. And this is actually basis of every science you repeat and repeat and repeat. And here this is really hard to repeat an experiment because it's so expensive to send it to the ISS and also it's kind of hard to get it in the schedule because there are all these other experiments that are waiting to go up.
So Magdalena began working at the European Space Agency immediately after completing her PhD in molecular biology. So you've really got one shot to get it right. Yeah, I mean, there are some conditions under which is a will grant you a relight, but uh, you really want to get it right the first time. And then maybe if you have really super interesting results, you might rather want to do another experiment rather than ly the same thing.
Right. But can I ask why are we doing biological experiments in space in the first place? I mean, it's not like plants grow there or, or humans live there, maybe outside of the ISS. Not yet. So one reason is really to understand how could we live in space? We do have a space station where people live, but if we want to stay for longer periods in space, we want to, uh, fly to Mars or uh, stay on moon.
We have to understand a, how can people live in reduced or zero gravity, but also how can we sustain ourselves? So how can we recycle water, recycle air? How can we maybe grow food, grow fuels or create some building material? So you might say, well, we have so many problems on earth. Why should we want to go to fly to Mars?
Why should we put so many resources into this research? So the other reason why we want to do that, because the results can be used on earth. So for example, the health impacts of zero gravity on human body. We see that astronauts living in the zero or the microgravity for a longer period of time. And this is months, not years.
There is muscle loss, also bone loss. So we see what's called osteoporosis. And this is a disease that we see on earth as well. Also muscle loss. We see that in older people, in ageing, people, in patients that are immobile for a long time. So the idea is if we understand the molecular mechanisms in the muscle cells, in the bone cells, in the tissue, then we will not only be able to fight those problems in space, but also on earth.
Micah: So these, some of these experiments have a dual purpose. Exactly. You mentioned before that it's expensive to get materials for the experiments to the ISS. Can you talk a bit about how do you do that? You know, you get an experiment, we'll talk about the process of how you prepare an experiment, but everything's ready and now it needs to go to space for the experiment to take place.
How do you get it there? If it's a biology experiment, we are talking living cells or tissues. So this cell culture or tissue culture has to be prepared on earth in a lab, usually on the launch side because it's not possible to send such a sample by post that takes so long that the cells would not be living anymore.
Magdalana Herova: So the scientists travel to the launch site, they prepare their sample, and again, the way the sample is, it's embedded in a complex hardware. It's usually like a tiny bioreactor. So. On earth, you would have, uh, tissue culture or cell culture, maybe in a Petri dish or in a, like a culture flask. And you would exchange the media.
The cells will need, uh, some nurture, right? So this is like, uh, called media and there they have all they need to survive. And, uh, this u will exchange by pipetting, for example. So on the ISS, most of this is done automatically. So the astronauts don't have like a bench where they pipette. So it will be put into a package where there you have like preheated elements that keep the temperature and we really need to put it in the rocket just before launch.
And then when, once it comes to the ISA, it has, has to be unpacked immediately and put into an incubator. How long does it take for the, uh, delivery? It doesn't take long. Maybe it takes one day from launch until receipt. Until it it docks. Yeah. And then, you know, maybe it takes another day until it's unpacked.
But what is tricky is that the launch depends on whether, if the launch is from Cape Canal, maybe the weather is not great and the launch has to be postponed. So this is something that's really tricky because if you have a, you know, package of, uh, some materials that are not living, then they can sit in the rocket and wait until the weather is good and the rocket can launch.
But here, basically the scientists have to be prepared to take everything outta the rocket and make a new batch if the launch is postponed. So, wow, so it's quite a process. Yeah. And it's like, it's a real work to replan then the experiment on the iss. So we can only start when the material is delivered and, uh, we have to start immediately when the material is delivered.
So we have an exact plan on the astronaut, the crew activities. And this is really like a big portion of our work to do the replanning, to do the exact planning and be able to replan if launch is moved one day, two days, five days, and so on. And I know you're a biologist, but what kinds of projects are you typically getting involved with?
Micah: I mean, these are, as you said, biology experiments, but more specifically, yes. So more specifically it's uh, experiments with muscle cells or muscle tissues to understand this muscle function loss in space. And also on earth it's experiments with bone cells. It's experiments with different types of cells where we want to, or the scientists want to look at 3D structure.
Magdalana Herova: So on earth due to gravity, cells will sit down on the Petri dish or culture flask bottom. And if you try to make like chunks or have the cells grow together to form what's called steroids, it's kind of hard to manage because they will sit down, all the cells will sit down, and in zero gravity it's easier to make those chunks.
You could study what happens between different kinds of cells when they make 3D structure, and this can be one type of cells or it can be different types of cells. So for example, it could be nerve and epithelial cell co-culture, but then there can be experiments that really focus more on algae, bacteria, cyanobacteria.
And those are the experiments that focus on trying to sustain life either in space or places. It's hard to get to because with photosynthesis you can, the microalgae will use the CO2, we breathe out and create new oxygen and you can use the basically wastewater as fertiliser for the algae. So in that case, you're actually trying to replicate a natural system from earth Exactly.
Micah: In space, which is really tricky. Why already to create a bioreactor that can sustain such culture and it doesn't leak and works, you know, all the little tubes work well in zero gravity already. That's like technically hard. And then you have to, in such bioreactor, you have to make sure that the microorganisms grow in a, you know, good and controlled rate.
Magdalana Herova: And the rate will be different on earth and in space and on earth. You are there and you can dilute the culture. You can measure and you just react to whatever happens in space, you are basically sending an automated bioreactor, but you don't know how fast the culture will grow. And then if, if the culture grows too fast, then what happens?
It something like, you know, in a lake that overgrows and becomes green and, and rots, something like that will happen. It's interesting to me if, if I'm hearing you right, that you have sort of almost two sides of the same coin when you were talking about muscle, for instance, space allows you to more easily replicate what happens on earth because you can more easily create 3D cultures.
Micah: And on the flip side, you're trying to recreate things that happen quite naturally on earth that are difficult to do in space. Exactly. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. To really understand what an experiment in space might look like. Let's take a moment to look at an image. The photo shows astronaut Michael Barrett working on the ISS and this was published by NASA in late 2024.
We've got a link to it in the show notes if you wanna take a look at it yourself. Dana, can you describe what's going on in the picture? Yeah, sure. Micah. Well, I can see that Michael is wearing blue lab gloves and a headset and he's got his gloved hands inside a glove box. You know, you see these in biological labs sometimes he's working with some tubes and syringes.
Dana: Uh, but when I look closer I can see that everything is strapped down because I suppose he's working in a zero gravity environment, right? And anything could float away if it's not exactly stuck to the, to the work surface. And in this case, Michael is processing human brain tissue samples to see how inflammation might affect conditions like Parkinson's disease.
What's striking too is the overall environment where this is taking place. The wall behind Michael is covered in wires and hoses and other bits of equipment. It's a very busy scene. Yeah, there are definitely clues that this is not a normal terrestrial lab and it shows how much needs to be considered when planning these experiments in space.
Micah: Now keep this image in your mind as we continue the conversation with Magdalena. Again, it's not us who, who comes up with the experiment. It's different scientific groups all over Europe. And when they apply to ISA, they have to justify why do they need space. So they need to explain exactly this. We need to see how algae would grow in space in order to create a bioreactor, or we need, uh, zero gravity in order to grow 3D culture, for example.
Magdalana Herova: They formulate the whole experiment. And it's my job to ask them all the little details that they don't need to put on paper if they do it in the lab. So if they do it in the lab, they have a plan, maybe change the media after 24 hours. And I ask them, well, is it, you know, on minute sharp 24 hours? Or is 23.5 also?
Okay. So I have to ask all these details to be able to plan it on the ISS and to also, you know, have a little bit of freedom to, uh, if something happens, how do we react? So I give a simple example of a, not even biologically experiment, but a video for school kids where we had a little robot and the astronaut was supposed to show that robot on a video.
And because of some reasons the robot didn't have a battery, but had a court. And I told the group that it was sending this robot there. I said, go and play the video through, pretend you're the astronaut and just do it all and then tell me did you like it? Or do we need to do any updates? And they thought, it's too stupid, it's too simple.
So they never did it. They just thought it's through, but they never played it through. And then I went and say, well look at the cart. It has one metre. If I stand and the plug is on the ground, which it is in the ISS, I will have the robot around, you know, height of my belly and maybe even lower. So this is something really simple and you only find out by trying, you know, playing the whole scenario through.
Micah: And is that what you do with the experiments? You, you have to create them on earth and walk through them? Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes. And then sometimes because of our experience, we can already think of the, the problems, but sometimes you really find the problem only out if you test it and not test it in your head or test it in the computer, but really test it.
And do you communicate with the astronauts while they're carrying out any of these experiments? Indirectly. So there is a special voice protocol and special communication protocol. And in normal case everything is prepared so meticulously that you don't need to communicate directly. But the astronauts will ask a question and there is a communicator who will answer.
Magdalana Herova: Because on ground there are so many teams that are supporting from different point of view. For example, there is a team that's responsible for the resources, you know, like power data and so on. There is a team, our team who's responsible for the experiment. There is another team who's responsible for stoic.
So let's say the astronaut ask, where is the backup? Uh, screwdriver. I should answer, but there is also the storage team, so it's better we first find the answer together rather than, you know, all calling up one over the other. So that's why there is this special protocol and this is also something that all the people that communicate with the ISS need a certification for.
And then there is a special way of communicating. And unless the experiment is really so complicated that you would need one-to-one conversation, you don't talk directly, you just uh, listen for the question and then you discussing the team and answer through the communicator. So if you know this, Houston, we have a problem.
Micah: Yeah, exactly. Then you know, there is a communicator in Houston, there is a communicator in Huntsville, and then for ISA there is a communicator in Munich. And then so the crew will call station Munich and the eurocom is his, his tag will answer. So that means you are on call. So at certain times during experiments, yeah.
Magdalana Herova: Experiments supported by us is running. We are in our control room in Ville Ni Walden. Mm-hmm. In Switzerland. Yes. And we are listening, we are following via video maybe also if we think that we need to say something, then we will say it to the flight director and he will basically agree, okay, we need to have the communicator say something to the crew or he says, no, I think the crew is smart enough.
They will figure out themselves maybe. Yeah. Conducting experiments on the ISS takes a lot of international cooperation with space agencies in places like Japan and Canada playing a key role since the ISS was first crude back in 2000, astronauts from over 108 countries have run experiments up there.
Micah: And of course that brings its own challenges. For example, what happens if an astronaut's native language is read right to left, but the visual instructions think of an IKEA manual are laid out, left to right. Will they be able to intuitively work out how to read them? These are the kinds of things you need to think about when you're working with a global team.
And when we spoke with Magdalena in late 2024, she was prepping for a launch the next day. And as long as the weather and other factors cooperate, here's what comes next. The closer we get to the launch, the more people are involved. So the more colleagues need to get involved because then we need, when we support from the control room, it cannot be done one by one person every day.
Magdalana Herova: It's too much and too long hours. So it's not really like being on call, but we really are connected. We watch the videos and we are waiting for the activity to start and thinking about what all could go wrong and or what all questions there could be. So you have quite a lot of things happening in parallel at any given time.
Micah: Yes. You mentioned earlier that there's no bench in the labs on the ISS, so now I'm, I'm having trouble imagining what, what the lab in space looks like, because that's the first thing I think of is a, is a bench. Right. So yeah, I will correct that. There are some tables that are kind of like bench, but then you have to imagine like a flat area that's full of Velcros and bungees.
Magdalana Herova: So because in zero gravity you cannot just put something on the bench or on the table. But a lot of the experiments that we support are really inside the closed box. So this box is filled on earth by the scientist. It has culture chamber with cells or tissue. It has another chamber with like fresh media.
It has little tiny pump like the size of your little pinky basically, or, or more pumps like that. And it has electronics. And what the astronaut sees is basically just like a blue box with electric connectors and there will be maybe 12 of these and they will put them in the incubator, close the incubator, and that's it.
And then it's us from Herges Wheel who will turn something on or change the temperature and monitor everything. So you have remote control for some? Yeah, in some cases, yes. How long does it take you to walk through all of this typically? I mean, I'm sure it's different for different experiments, but just in general, this very detailed, systematic, you know, thinking through things, computer testing things, hand testing things.
Yeah. It really depends. But with experience, of course you, you can, you review a document and you ask the right questions much faster. And the whole process of planning and experiment, it can be two or three years, but it's not because we work on that every day. But it's because there are different stages where hardware is being built or safety is being assessed, or the whole thing stops because the group has lost a postdoc or the whole thing stops because launches are moved.
It's a really long process and there are many teams working on it and there are many aspects that can actually, you know, prolong the process. So despite all the structure that you're creating, you have to remain flexible. Yes, absolutely. So you have to remain flexible. Yeah, that's a real challenge because sometimes also, you know, just for the work life balance, you want to see your experiment fly and then when the launch move you realise, oh, but I will be on holiday.
And then you have to, first of all, you don't see it. And second of all, you, you know, not thinking the world will not spin without me. You have to really see, okay, who, I have to brief my colleagues. So stuff is always happening without me and it's better if it happens without me. So always backing everything up and working in teams.
So this is the, the way to success basically. It also, I assume, is sort of a test of how successful your documentation is, right? I mean, yes. Shouldn't need you there to say no, no, I meant right. Yes, exactly. The better it is, the less you need to be there. Do you look forward to every launch? Do you watch everyone You can?
No. No, no. Because really they move so often and then you just sit there and it doesn't launch. And I'm really more interested in the living things. So I really do watch when the samples come back to earth, you don't hear anything for months because the scientists are analysing. But I rather do read every paper or that they publish with the results that come out of my experiments.
That's, that's what's really exciting for me. I wanna sort of shift to talking about the future a bit. If you can sort of look forward in your field. How do you see the future of biological research in space evolving over the next say decade? So the ISS is there until 2030 and after that new stations are planned.
So it's actually the ISS should not be dection before a new station is coming. And it seems there might be more stations or bigger stations, but this is all very expensive and technically complex. So if those plans succeed, there will always be a station and it'll be more and more easy to bring samples to space because we see their different providers at the moment of flights to the ISS.
So if this continues, then, and then I think this is also plan of ZA and NASA that it continues and then it's easy and that it's kind of a standard thing and that we can really focus on those 3D cultures, those typical things that we need zero gravity for, that this research can flourish. But it can also be that this doesn't work so well.
So you never know, like the hiccups, it's, it's hard to predict. We saw now, for example, the Boeing flight, there was the first, uh, flight to the ISS with two astronauts in early summer this year. And they were supposed to be on the, well, the flight was postponed and postponed because the had some problems and then it launched.
But during the launch there were some more problems. So it would have been risky to download or to come back on plan. And those astronauts had to stay for a couple of months longer. You know, it didn't go according to plan. And this can happen and then there will be basically maybe a stop, even a stop. Do you see biotech playing a role, these types of experiments playing a role in private space travel?
Yes. So the theoretical plan is exactly that. That there will be commercial experiments, that there will be companies for whom it's interesting to, to test their products in space. And when we talk biology, this could be testing some medic when there is also I think, rising field in trying to crystallise things in zero gravity because protein crystallisation will happen differently, um, than on earth.
And that could be an evolvement in basically medic production or, what did I say, medic is German word, right? Yeah. So production of medicine or medications. Yeah, yeah, medication. But will it happen again? We have to, we rely on all these technical details, whether a station will be built. So all this research, um, drug development, this, they all take really long.
Micah: You're also involved in STEM education. What does that work look like for you? So here ISA has a basically education programme and the ISA astronauts, they will record videos with some educational content or do little experiments that they show on video and then it can be used as educational materials.
Magdalana Herova: There are also some activities for students and uh, one like big example is um, the programming challenge. It's called Astro Pi challenge. There are two Raspberry Pi computers on the ISS so kids can programme and that programme will be sent to the computer on the ISS and can run on the ISS. And there are two levels in the simple level.
It will be just like showing a simple message on the LED screen of the computer and the more advanced version is that kids really like make an experiment and they can measure different, uh, data through sense, many sensors that are on these computers and then they can get the data back from the ISS and then analyse this, analyse it on earth.
That's really fun for kids to actually, you know, programme for the ISS, not programme for the homework, but send your programme to the ISS. That's gotta be amazing. Most schoolwork feels so disconnected or a lot of it at least can feel very disconnected from the real world. And this is not, this is out of this world even.
Exactly. What advice would you give others in the sciences who, who might be interested in a career like yours? Well, if you want to do something with EA with space, then really there are so many possibilities to do An internship, young graduate trainee programme at EA. There are so many jobs in those ground teams that support either the ISS or for example, remote sensing.
So like data that is recorded from satellites about earth or about space. So isai is not just the human space light, right? They're different domains for those who are from Switzerland. You of course need to, uh, apart from German or French, also speak English, and you need to be good at what you do, be it your computer scientist, biologist, or an engineer.
But there are really so many opportunities.
Dana: We've been speaking to Dr. Magdalena Harva, a biologist working in the user support and operation centre for the European Space Agency. Dana, what were your takeaways from this conversation? Yeah, my biggest takeaway is that in space, you can't take anything for granted. Every single detail of these experiments needs to be considered documented, tested, and communicated.
Things that you just assume in a terrestrial lab can't really be assumed on the ISS. Yeah, that really stood out to me that you can't have a single jump in logic. It's like if you had to teach someone how to tie their shoe, you might be able to sort of do it in a few steps. But in space, it's like twice as many steps to do the same thing because you just can't have those assumptions.
Micah: And I guess the reason for that is because you only have one chance to do this. It's not like you can send up another rocket with, you know, more tissue samples or whatever if something goes wrong. Yeah, it really is one and done.
Dana: This has been balancing the future from Mettler Toledo. What questions about science and technology do you want answered in a future episode? Let us know by leaving a review or if you're a Spotify user, leave us a message in the comment section and be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode. See you then.
