ULISSE project (2009-2011) USOCs KnowLedge Integration and dissemination for Space Science and Exploration

Date: 2009 - 2011

Funding: European Commission

Partners: 18 european partners

ULISSE was a project funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme, on the theme of Space (Exploration).

It mainly aimed to provide tools and services for analysing or re-analysing data or samples obtained during experiments on the ISS or simulation experiments carried out on the ground (such as clinical bed rest studies), to make them more visible and accessible to the scientific community.

ULISSE thus provided an infrastructure and tools for more thorough exploitation of the scientific data from future experiments on the ISS. ULISSE also provided data from other space platforms as well as data already available from previous space-based experiments.
ULISSE produced scientific and technical data for most scientific disciplines, such as the life sciences (including space medicine and exobiology), biotechnology, materials and fluids sciences.

The project was involved dissemination activities (publications, events for the general public and for specialists, educational activities on space research, etc.) in order to increase involvement of specialists and raise awareness among the general public.

A consortium of 18 european partners has been formed for the project.

The role of MEDES

MEDES was a partner in the project:

partly to help establish the source and format of the available data and the access conditions for clinical studies such as bed rest or confinement experiments
and partly to help analyse and disseminate the project’s results and those of space research in general.

MEDES’s objective was therefore to disseminate the results of the project to potential users, i.e. the scientific community, while also encouraging the interest of the general public in space research, especially by explaining its applications and results, the societal objectives of space research and its links with the everyday lives of European citizens, and also by encouraging universities to take an interest in this research.

MEDES has produced a range of communication media (flyers, a series of posters, etc.) and a website intended for the general public (at the following address: www.medes.ulisse.fr ). Several events have already been organised and a book has been published by Editions Springer.

The book

Title: “Laboratory Science with Space Data”
Sub-title: Accessing and Using Space-Experiment Data
Editors: D. Beysens, L. Carotenuto, J. Van Loon, M. Zell
Contributors: more than 40
216 pages
4 main parts:
   - General introduction
   - Space and Ground based infrastructures
   - Areas of research
   - ULISSE access to data