The European Space Agency (ESA), German Aerospace Center (DLR), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Institute of Biomedical Problems (IMBP) have joined together as the International Countermeasures Working Group (ICM). The ICM provides a forum for member agencies to coordinate activities and exchange research information directly related to the cooperative planning and execution of new countermeasure research on Earth, aiming at future research and application in space. This research is focused initially on bed rest, but also includes research utilizing other ground-based analogs, animal models and various other available research platforms. Such research includes the coordinated development and standardized evaluation of countermeasures, and combinations thereof, to the untoward human changes during space missions of different types, and the coordination of multilateral space research aimed at countermeasure development and evaluation.
ICM Workshop 2010: An ICM Workshop was held in collaboration with the 31st Annual Meeting of the International Society of Gravitational Physiology (ISGP) Life in Space for Life on Earth from June 13 – 18, 2010. For additional information on the ICM, please go to their website, ICM IWG. The ICM scientific sessions on exercise countermeasures for space exploration were embedded into the regular ISGP meeting agenda that included plenary lectures and scientific panels. Additional ICM sessions focusing on Space Operations and Technology Development was held on the Saturday following the ISGP meeting (June 19).