NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

OpNom:

Overview | Description | Applications | Operations | Results | Publications | Imagery

Experiment Overview


Information provided courtesy of the Erasmus Experiment Archive.
Brief Summary

Assessment of Endurance Capacity by Gas Exchange and Heart Rate Kinetics during Physical Training (EKE) will aim to make an assessment of endurance capacity and heart rate kinetics during physical training of International Space Station (ISS) crewmembers.

Principal Investigator(s)

Dieter Essfeld, Germany

Stefanos Fasoulas, Ph.D., University of Dresden, Dresden, Germany

T. Drager, Germany

U Hoffman, Germany

Co-Investigator(s)/Collaborator(s)

Information Pending

Developer(s)
Information Pending

Sponsoring Space Agency

European Space Agency (ESA)

Sponsoring Organization

Information Pending

Research Benefits

Information Pending

ISS Expedition Duration:

March 2009 - September 2012

Expeditions Assigned

19/20,21/22,23/24,25/26,27/28,29/30,31/32

Previous ISS Missions

EKE first began on ISS during Expedition 19/20.

^ back to top

---

Experiment Description

Research Overview

• Specific goals of EKE involves the development of a diagnostic tool for the assessment of endurance capacity from respiratory and cardiovascular kinetics in response to changes in exercise intensity, and the development of a physiological model to explore the delay and distortion of muscle VO2 signals during their travel to the lungs.

Description

The preservation of aerobic capacity is a major goal of exercise countermeasures during weightlessness. A widely used measurement for endurance capacity is maximal oxygen uptake (VO2 max) determined by incremental exercise tests until exhaustion. A potential alternative method that will allow to at least reduce the frequency of such tests is to determine the dynamics of pulmonary oxygen uptake (VO2) and heart rate (HR) responses during changes in workload at mild to moderate exercise levels and to calculate muscular VO2 kinetics.

^ back to top

---

Applications

Space Applications

Assessment of astronaut health and fitness (specifically their aerobic capacity) is a vital part of any mission, not only to secure the well-being of the astronaut in question but also to secure the aims and goals of the mission such as undertaking scientific research. The EKE experiment should help to reduce the amount of time that is spent making this type of cardiopulmonary health assessment on long-duration missions (thus increasing the time available for research activities) by the development of an improved diagnostic method for the assessment of endurance capacity which is less time intensive than currently used method (VO2 Max).

Earth Applications

Data from this research will also help to improve our knowledge in general  of the physiological mechanisms at work during the assessment of endurance capacity.  The improvement of diagnostic techniques in space could also lead to improved diagnostic techniques of endurance capacity on earth where VO2 max is a standard technique.

^ back to top

---

Operations

Operational Requirements

Information Pending

Operational Protocols

Information Pending

^ back to top

---

Results/More Information

^ back to top

---

Related Websites

^ back to top

---

Imagery