Selected experiments for the International Space Station (ISS) are heading for ESA23/4/2025|Press releasesIn cooperation with other ministries, the Ministry of Transport has selected 14 experiments for the ISS to be controlled by Czech astronaut Aleš Svoboda. They range from physiology to demonstrators of new technologies and include activities for the general public as well. Although the experiments are mostly related to basic research, they will bring benefits for space and terrestrial applications. Some of them should reach the ISS before the Czech astronaut Aleš Svoboda starts his mission at the end of 2027 and others will fly on board with him. The Ministry of Transport will send the list of recommended experiments and numerous additional conditions to the European Space Agency (ESA) later this week. Following the Czech instructions, ESA will then conduct negotiations with project promoters with the aim of signing contracts for project implementation by the beginning of the summer. "We must start working on the experiments as soon as possible, so that the first instruments are ready for ISS as early as 2027. They should be ready before the mission of the Czech astronaut Aleš Svoboda, which we expect at the turn of 2027 and 2028," says transport minister Martin Kupka. There has been immense interest in scientific research, technology demonstrations and educational activities on board the ISS. Last year's survey of interest in this type of project brought 70 ideas. This is more than the call for projects in neighbouring Poland, which is three times more populous and will send an astronaut into space at the end of May. It was also thanks to the feedback on these diverse proposals that 25 high-quality project applications were refined and submitted to the tender in the second round. They were first evaluated by ESA experts, who issued a technical opinion and a set of recommendations for each of them. The members of the Czech committee managing the "Framework project for the implementation of ESA support to space-related activities in the Czech Republic” programme worked with this opinion, selecting a balanced set of experiments that takes into account the specifics of the ISS, the test infrastructure available, the permitted mass and volume, the efficiency of the astronaut's time and more. "The wrist-watch dosimeter got the highest score. It will help improve astronauts' safety by accurately monitoring exposure to ionizing radiation, contributing with valuable data to future space exploration efforts. The experiment paves the way to Mars, where radiation is our greatest enemy and our biggest problem which still remains unresolved. Several experiments have the ambition to improve the life support systems of future spacecraft and others are investigating the effect of the space environment, especially microgravity, i.e. weightlessness, and radiation on the human body," says Václav Kobera, chairman of the committee and coordinator of the national project Czech Journey to Space. Other experiments will contribute to research on cancer, fertility and food resilience to climate change. "Physical and technical experiments only are typically less suited to serving an astronaut, as this selection has also shown. The implementation of these projects has been recommended by both ESA and the committee through the external Bartolomeo platform, for which a specific ESA call for this project type is planned for the turn of the year. The paradox is that these experiments may reach the ISS even earlier than with Aleš Svoboda," says program manager Ondřej Rohlík. The committee also recommended a proposal to implement a set of educational activities during which Aleš Svoboda will introduce the public to various phenomena that are unfeasible on Earth. In the next few days, the Ministry of Transport will send to ESA a list of recommended experiments along with instructions on what needs to be changed – verified, resolved, reduced, simplified and, in some cases, simply dropped altogether, typically due to the limited capacity of laboratory equipment on the ISS where some instruments are booked up to five years in advance, i.e. until the end of the station's lifetime, or due to overall weight or volume. Everything has to fit into about 50 litres of volume and 15 kilograms of weight on Aleš Svoboda's mission. It is therefore likely that the projects recommended will not be implemented exactly as proposed and that many of them will undergo substantial changes during the preparations with ESA. The reason is that various physical, technical, operational or safety constraints require this. Interestingly, several proposals are ready to use laboratory equipment that businesses have brought to the ISS as commercial equipment, such as the German incubator Yuri Science Taxi or the Belgian plug-and-play system International Commercial Experiment Cubes (ICE Cubes). The committee recommended that ESA negotiates the specific form of contract with the parties who submitted these experiments (in alphabetical order): AstroDesmus, which will test extremophilic microalgae for their resistance to chlorates and their ability to accumulate heavy metals, AstroMoWe, which will monitor and analyse the movement and muscle activity of the astronauts, CANCER, which will focus on the study of immune system behaviour and virus reactivation, CARE, which will investigate the short-term effects of microgravity on growth, metabolite production and gene expression of microalgae, CONREX, which will test magnetic nano and micro robots on the ISS, CryoAlgae, which will investigate the effect of space conditions on oxygen production, growth, metabolomic profile and morphology of two strains of extremophilic microalgae from cryospheric habitats, while also investigating increases in lipid accumulation, CZPAD, which will use a specially modified dosimeter to measure the radiation dose from neutrons slowed by water in the astronaut's body, EDOUTA, a comprehensive set of activities for students, teachers and the public, including educational materials, live interactions with the astronaut and creative projects, ICARUS ARMOR Next Gen, which will create a customised digital twin model to predict astronauts' cognitive performance under cumulative stress, ISS T-shirt that will track stress levels using a new thermodynamic metric, METRO, which will investigate the control of gas transfer in microgravity for efficient long-term operation of space photobioreactors, PROTOCELL, which tests the ability to form and function protocells using liquid droplets, PUMR-B, which will investigate the effect of microgravity on spring barley development and its adaptation to dry and hot environments, ZOE, which will test whether embryonic development under microgravity and cosmic rays will produce a fertile individual. Leading young people towards science and the study of technical fields is something what really matters. In addition to strengthening and modernising the national economy through space activities, the national project Czech Journey to Space also seeks to send a Czech astronaut into space and motivate young people to study technical fields. The selection of experiments is another important step following the selection of young ambassadors of the Czech space programme. These young people are actually undergoing similar training to Aleš Svoboda, a Czech member of the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut reserve team, and have took for example a common parabolic flight on 30 March 2025.