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Banner image: CU Boulder aerospace engineers Torin Clark, left, and Allie Hayman, right, sit with the crew of Polaris Dawn during an event on campus in 2022. (Credit: Casey Cass/CU Boulder)

Editor's note: This story was adapted from a version published by the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

During SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn's multi-day high-altitude mission, which rocketed to space on Sept. 10, the crew will conduct health impact research to better understand spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). Researchers from CU Boulder and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus are right there with them. Or at least their equipment and expertise will be.

The team is sending up specialized optical equipment to gather data from astronauts’ eyes and will analyze the results during and after the five-day mission.

The research is a collaboration between Allie Hayman, associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder, and Prem Subramanian, chief of neuro-ophthalmology at the CU School of Medicine. 

Torin Clark, associate professor of aerospace engineering sciences at CU Boulder, is leading separate research from the ground for the Polaris Dawn mission about how astronauts experience motion sickness and other illusory sensations during space travel.

For some time, astronauts have noticed vision changes during long-duration space missions. Since 1998, NASA has sent astronauts to the International Space Station with “space anticipation glasses,” which have adjustable refraction settings to meet changing vision needs, similar to binoculars. In 2011, NASA began conducting MRI scans on astronauts following missions, which revealed potentially increased pressure in their brains as well as optic disc swelling, or papilledema, in more than half of the astronauts.

On Polaris Dawn, the researchers are sending up SENSIMED Triggerfish lenses, which are “smart” contact lenses to track eye pressure fluctuation and changes in cornea dimensions in glaucoma patients. CU Department of Ophthalmology Adjoint Professor Kaweh Mansouri, MD, contributed to the development of these lenses, which will monitor astronauts’ eyes during launch and as they transition to microgravity, a condition of apparent weightlessness. The lenses contain sensors that transmit data to an antenna and local storage device, enabling the researchers to collect and analyze data upon their return. 

The team is also sending a device called the QuickSee, which will measure astronauts’ refractive error, when the shape of the eye changes and keeps light from focusing correctly on the retina.

Polaris Dawn crew members include Mission Commander Jared “Rook” Isaacman; Mission Pilot Scott “Kidd” Poteet; Mission Specialist and Medical Officer Anna “Walker” Menon; and Mission Specialist Sarah “Cooper” Gillis, who graduated from CU Boulder in 2017 with a degree in aerospace engineering sciences.