Garmin smartwatches will play a vital role in an upcoming Polaris Dawn mission, with astronauts wearing fēnix 7 adventure watches to monitor the impact of space travel on the human body.
A five-day mission is planned for later this year with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Garmin’s watches will allow researchers to continuously gather crew members’ biometric data such as heart rate, pulse oximetry, and sleep patterns.
The long battery life of the fēnix 7 means they smartwatches will not need to be recharged throughout the mission.
“Garmin is honored to be a part of this exciting research effort that will advance the understanding of how the human body adapts to the rigors of space flight,” says Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global sales.
“The exceptional battery life of our smartwatches will allow researchers the opportunity to continuously monitor all four crew members while awake and at rest over the five-day mission — with no down time needed to recharge the battery.”
Polaris Dawn aims to orbit Earth for five days at a greater distance above the planet’s surface than ever before achieved.
Crew members will also be taking part in commercial spacewalks.
Health and biomedical research is being overseen by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH).
The Polaris Dawn crew and TRISH chose Garmin smartwatches for the mission because of their long battery life, durability and suite of all-day health monitoring features.
“The trove of biometric data provided by Garmin fēnix smartwatches will allow us to better understand how the body adjusts to being in space,” says Jimmy Wu, TRISH senior biomedical engineer.
“Once collected, this physiological data will be added to TRISH’s EXPAND database, aiding current and future research to study and understand human health and performance for all future human space exploration missions.”
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions that ultimately aim to send crews to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
