EXPAND

The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine established the first-of-its-kind research platform to study human health and performance in private spaceflight participants in 2021. Working with commercial spaceflight providers and their passengers, TRISH’s EXPAND (Enhancing eXploration Platforms and Analog Definition) Program collects pre-, in-, and post-flight health data from multiple commercial space flights and data is housed it in a centralized research database.

EXPAND research addresses a wide range of challenges that humans face on long duration space missions: early detection and treatment of medical conditions, protection from radiation effects, mental health, team dynamics and more. TRISH pioneered a way to combine the studies of multiple researchers to streamline the process for spaceflight participants.

The first commercial spaceflight carrying TRISH EXPAND health research was the three-day long Inspiration4 mission that launched on Sept. 15, 2021.

In addition to new experiments, TRISH’s goal is to provide a state-of-the-art integrated medical and environmental research knowledge bank as well as a repository for biological samples. EXPAND captures research, medical data and biospecimens from all volunteering commercial spaceflight participants. TRISH selected TrialX to build the centralized database.