Main description:

For decades experiments conducted on space stations like MIR and the ISS have been gathering data in many fields of research in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering. The EU-sponsored Ulisse Internet Portal provides metadata from space experiments of all kinds and links to the data. Complementary to the portal, this book will serve as handbook listing space experiments by type of infrastructure, area of research in the life and physical sciences, data type, what their mission was, what kind of data they have collected and how one can access this data through Ulisse for further research.

The book will provide an overview of the wealth of space experiment data that can be used for research, and will inspire academics (e.g. those looking for topics for their PhD thesis) and research departments in companies for their continued development.

Contents:

1 Introduction.- 2 Space and Ground-Based Infrastructures.- 2.1 Characteristics of the Space Environment.- 2.2 Space Infrastructure.- 2.3 Non-orbital weightless research platforms.- 2.4 Ground-based facilities and space simulators.- 3 Areas of research.- 3.1 Physical sciences.- 3.2 Life sciences.- 4 ULISSE access to data.- 4.1 Data description.- 4.2 Identification of information: the ULISSE knowledge base.- 4.3 ULISSE: data access services.