Project webpage: www.astrobiologia.es
Period: 29/12/2016 – 30/12/2020
Project code: FIS2016-77578-R
Principal investigator: Jesús Manuel Sobrado Vallecillo
CAB’s MARTE vacuum system: ttp://www.uhv.es/sites/marte/index.html
WLOM is a project funded by the Spanish government through a grant from the national research plan.
The aim of the WLOM project is to achieve technological progress in simulation systems that allow the study of biological samples in vacuum and extreme environments in which water plays a fundamental role. In other words, the aim is to make two apparently opposing worlds – water and vacuum – compatible.
From a scientific point of view, it is to make progress in the adaptation mechanisms of biological samples in the primordial atmosphere of Mars, using mosses, algae and cyanobacteria that could be fundamental in the creation of an oxidising atmosphere.
For this purpose, a vacuum microdroplet injection system has been designed to simulate condensation, as well as environmental mechanisms to protect the surface of the samples within a protective layer of surface ice, maintaining interior cavities with high levels of hydration.
