**3. Scientific analog missions**

Scientific experiments in space are limited by strict policy rules as well as size and mass limits. Most of the scientists cannot afford to send their experiments to space because of high costs. Creating analogous environment on the Earth enables alternative and much cheaper opportunities. The Analog Astronaut Training Center develops multidisciplinary scientific projects in collaboration with research centres, universities, space agencies and private space companies. These projects are often the development of master, engineer, and PhD theses, investigating high-risk hypotheses.

The following are the scientific projects with AATC:


#### *Lunar Science - Habitat and Humans*


Analog missions for students require preparations before the mission launch. The optimal time of mission preparations is 2 months. After the recruitment phase, students are asked to fill in a spreadsheet with basic information concerning communication, interests, affiliations and proposed experiments. AATC encourages students to bring their own experiments to the habitat. Each experiment must be described in a special research collaboration form. After approval, students transfer their experiment title, description and procedures to the main mission document, which is called the Mission Manual. The Mission Manual is an internal document describing the whole mission scenario including mission objectives, mission procedures, operations and the main expected results. Based on this information there is a possibility to evaluate the quality of the mission and analog astronauts' performance.

Analog Astronaut Training Center serves as unique laboratory platform for multidisciplinary projects covering geology, robotics, telecommunication, space architecture, biology, nutrition, medicine, ecology, life support systems and agriculture. For each mission we prepare customised laboratory equipment, chemical reagents and tools dedicated for specific projects. We collaborate with several laboratories, research centres and engineering teams to get algae, plant or animal species, specific yeast and bacteria lines, liquid nitrogen, dry ice, regolith simulants, centrifuges, microscopes, rovers, landers, lidars and spectrometers.

AATC aims to expand activities in the following areas:


*Educational and Scientific Analog Space Missions DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101392*

#### **Figure 6.**

*Sunlight simulator system to generate various cocktails of light with unique functionalities such as raising serotonin and vitamin D levels.*
