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IBIS:  AN INSTRUMENT DEDICATED TO PERFORM BIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENTS IN MICROGRAVITY.    D. Thierion¹, G. Gasset², D. Chaput¹, A. Labarthe¹, B. Eche¹ and M. Viso³.    ¹Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse, ²Groupement Scientifique de Biologie et de Mйdecine spatiale, Paris; ³Centre National d’Etudes Spatioales, Toulouse.

IBIS (Instrument de Biologie Spatiale) was design by the technical center of the French Space Agency (CNES) in Toulouse to answer some fundamental questions in biology and developmental biology addressed by the French scientific community. The instrument was specifically designed to fly on the Foton capsules. Despite the shaky history of the three performed flights the contribution of IBIS to study the effects of micro-gravity on living systems is very significant.

The Instrument is composed of three main compartments. The refrigerator can hold 32 pairs of experimental “cassettes”. The temperature can be set from 0 to 22°C. The incubator can house simultaneously 16 pairs of “cassettes”. One cassette lays on the continuous centrifuge and one on the micro-gravity tray. The temperature of this compartment can be set between 20 and 37°C. The intermediate compartment is used to enter and retrieve the cassettes. This area can be used also to house 5 cassettes at a temperature between 20 and 37°C. The “cassettes” are processed in pairs; one for the micro-gravity tray and the other for the centrifuge. Three types of cassettes are already designed and manufactured: two dedicated to animal cells and larvae, one to seed development. The hardware and its performance will be described and the past and future mission profiles will be presented.

Since the preparation of the biological samples in Plessetsk is possible the range and the quality of experiments which can be performed with IBIS, are significantly enhance.