Texas A&M Reopens NASA Centrifuge for Moon, Mars Studies
SkimNews Take
Domesticating human research on artificial gravity allows for a more integrated, iterative design process for future space habitats and missions by bringing the testing closer to the development.
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- Texas A&M University is launching a research centrifuge at the Anthony Wood '87 Artificial Gravity Lab capable of simulating lunar (one-sixth Earth gravity) and Martian (three-eighths) gravity for prolonged human studies.
- The centrifuge was originally built in 2005 for NASA's Constellation Space Exploration Program by engineering firm KBR Inc. at UTMB, then stored at NASA Johnson Space Center for more than a decade after the program was canceled in 2009 before NASA gifted it to Texas A&M and TEES.
- Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, a former NASA astronaut and Texas A&M aerospace engineering professor, established a new building for the centrifuge using the Texas A&M University System Chancellor's Research Initiative (CRI).
- Dunbar said the U.S. currently lacks a domestic capability for combined bed-rest and centrifuge studies, forcing NASA to send human research abroad — a process she called 'expensive and logistically complex.'
- Researchers will study cardiovascular response, skin blood flow, and heat transfer in different gravity levels, with the explicit goal of informing next-generation spacesuit design and countermeasures for long-duration spaceflight.
- Current centrifuge trials last only minutes, but the facility could eventually support continuous artificial-gravity exposures of up to two hours, with KBR professional operators running the machine from a neighboring control room.
- Dr. Ana Diaz Artiles is the primary investigator for the 'Gravity Dose' cardiovascular studies and is currently in Europe conducting parabolic flight experiments whose results will complement the upcoming centrifuge research.
Why it matters: The centrifuge restores a U.S.-based human research capability that NASA has lacked for over a decade, potentially saving the agency the cost and complexity of shipping astronauts abroad for bed-rest and gravity studies. With NASA targeting a return to the moon and eventual Mars missions, the facility gives American researchers direct, prolonged exposure data on partial-gravity physiology — feeding into spacecraft design, spacesuit thermal management, and astronaut health countermeasures.
