NASA HUNCH Documentary on RFx!

Curious about our Reversible Figures International Space Station
experiment? Check out this great documentary created by a team of
students from Robert Thirsk High School for NASA HUNCH!

RFx Results Published In PLoS ONE Journal

07 JUL 2015

Message from the RFx Team:

We are glad to report that a manuscript describing the results of the ISS Reversible Figures experiment has been published in PLoS One. Check it out at:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0132317

This manuscript concludes a series of 4 peer-reviewed publications and 12 presentations in international scientific symposia since this experiment was selected in response to the ILSRA2009.

Peer-Reviewed Publications:

• Lim D, Demel M, Kohli S, Clément G (2009) Effects of gravity direction on the percept reversal of ambiguous figures. Aviation, Space & Environmental Medicine 80: 278-279 
• Clément G, Demel M (2012) Perceptual reversal of bi-stable figures in microgravity and hypergravity during parabolic flight. Neuroscience Letters 507: 143-146 
• Clément G, Ngo-Anh J (2013) Adaptation of the central nervous system to space flight: Past, current and future studies. European Journal of Applied Physiology 113: 1655-1672 
• Clément G, Allaway HCM, Demel M, Golemis A, Kindrat AN, Melinyshyn AM, Merali T, Thirsk R (2015) Long-duration spaceflight increases depth ambiguity of reversible perspective figures. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0132317 

Presentations at Symposia:

• Lim D, Demel M, Kohli S, Clément G “Effects of gravity direction on the percept reversal of ambiguous figures”. 79th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Aerospace Medical Association, Los Angeles, California (USA) May 2009 
• Frey MA, Bopp E, Clément G, Cavanagh PR, Nickerson CA, Barratt M, Duane P “ISS research results and applications to medical operations”. 79th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Aerospace Medical Association, Los Angeles, California (USA) May 2009 
• Merali T, Demel M, Thirsk R, Clément G “Image Reversal in Space – Student International Space Station Experiment”. 60th International Astronautical Congress, Daejeon (South Korea) October 2009 
• Clément G, Bukley A, Steinberg M, Thirsk R “IRIS educational experiment on ISS – An example of an academic and scientific learning experience”. 14th International Space University Symposium, Strasbourg (France) February 2010 
• Clément G “International Space University – Education and Training”. 6th International Conference on Aerospace Medicine, Thessaloniki (Greece) September 2010 
• Brodsky Y, Mackintosh T, Demel M, Thirsk R, Clément G “Images reversal in space: The effects of microgravity on perception of perspective-reversible figures”. 61st International Astronautical Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Prague (Czech Republic) October 2010 
• Allaway H, Melinyshyn A, Kindrat A, Muller J, Pankhania J, Perez-Poch A, Ventura D, Thirsk R, Clément G “Perception of ambiguous images in weightlessness”. ELGRA Symposium, Antwerp (Belgium) September 2011 
• Melinyshyn A, Kindrat A, Allaway H, Muller J, Pankhania J, Merali T, Demel M, Thirsk R, Clément G “Illusions in space: The impact of weightlessness on our perception of ambiguous images”. 62nd International Astronautical Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Cape Town (South Africa) October 2011 
• Allaway H, Demel M, Kindrat A, Melinyshyn A, Merali T, Pankhania J, Thirsk B, Clément G “Perspective-reversible figures in microgravity”. International Space Station Multilateral Increment-31-32 Science Symposium, ESTEC, Noordwijk (The Netherlands) December 2011 
• Merali T, Kindrat A, Allaway H, Pankhania J, Melinyshyn A, Demel M, Thirsk B, Clément G “Reversible figures: Developing an ISS life sciences payload”. 63rd International Astronautical Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, Naples (Italy) October 2012 
• Golemis A, Allaway H, Demel M, Kindrat A, Melinyshyn A, Merali T, Thirsk R, Clément G “Perception of ambiguous reversible figures on Earth and in space”. 19th IAA Humans in Space Symposium, Cologne (Germany) July 2013 
• Clément G “Distance and depth perception in astronauts on board the International Space Station”. 20th IAA Humans in Space Symposium, Prague (Czech Republic) July 2015 

Thanks to all for your support on this experiment. It was highly successful and got a lot of visibility.

RFx Team

Reversible Figures successfully completes on-orbit operations

During the International Astronautical Congress 2014 in Toronto, Ontario, Mr. Martin Zell, Head of International Space Station Utilization for the European Space Agency presented an update on ESA science in board ISS. 

It was noted that Reversible Figures had now officially completed On-Orbit operations. The RFx team now heads into full data analysis mode to determine the firm results of the experiment from the crew subjects. 

Our week at NASA's Johnson Space Center

While baseline data collection was occurring throughout the week in September, the RFx team was invited to tour NASA's Neuroscience Laboratory on-site at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This lab houses multiple researchers and experiments which primarily test various aspects of the human body's adaptation to spaceflight. Awesome!

Also during our visit was the last press NASA press conference for the crew of Expedition 35 - scheduled to launch into orbit December 5th 2012. Commanded by Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Chris Hadfield, the crew of 3 will link up with the Expedition 33/34 crew slated for launch October 23rd 2012.

And with RFx on-orbit, we've had 2 successful inflight sessions completed!

Reversible Figures in Action!

Things have been busy with Reversible Figures lately! Not to mention our beautiful launch into orbit...

Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi (July 15 2012)

Along with a great photo of Sunita Williams conducting our experiment on the International Space Station! Thanks for a great snap!

Credit: NASA/ESA (July 19 2012)

We've had a couple RFx in-flight sessions completed and look forward to more in the coming Expedition as well. Team members have been training and collecting baseline data from various crew members as well - a member of our team is there at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston this week! We also had another team member visit our operations support centre, CADMOS in France a few weeks ago. Thanks for checking-in with us - don't forget to follow us here, on Twitter @RFxSpaceStation (live feed below) or even drop us an email to ask a question.