ALTEA, a facility for the International Space Station: studying particle fluxes and cerebral functions in orbit

The ALTEA facility is aimed at studying particle fluxes and cerebral functions in orbit. A scheduled “ALTEA project” for this facility is devoted to investigation of the possible functional impairment of the brain in the space environment due to particle radiation. An animal model for this experiment is being tested using mice irradiated in accelerators and concurrent electrophysiological investigation. Multi-disciplinary international collaboration is contributing to the development of the ALTEA facility, and to running the ALTEA experiment. The basic instrumentation is composed by 12 active particle silicon telescopes (assembled in pairs), one ElectroencephaloGrapher (EEG) and a visual stimulator, arranged in a helmet shaped device. This instrumentation is able to measure the dynamics of the functional status of the visual system, the cortical electrophysiological activity, the passage of each particle in a pre-determined energy window through the brain. These three basic instruments can be used separately or in any combination, maintaining a common time reference thus permitting several different experiments (radiation environment studies, particle physics, electrophysiology, psychophysics, etc.). ALTEA is scheduled to fly in the International Space Station (ISS) in the spring of 2003. A precursor ("ALTEINO"), based on one silicon telescope, and one EEG will be launched in the Russian module of the ISS in early 2002 and will serve as discriminating dosimeter for the particle fluences inside the ISS, and to construct a baseline for the astronaut's electrophysiological activity in orbit.