Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, living aboard the International Space Station, is working on constructing a brain-computer interface.

He partnered with astronaut Sawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski in the Space Station’s Columbus laboratory module to analyse near-infrared technology to record brain activity.

For the experiment, Wisniewski wore a special cap connected via Bluetooth to a laptop computer, which recorded his brain activity. Meanwhile, Shukla optimised the signal quality and calibrated the hardware.

“The pair also recorded and downlinked video of crew activities for the Astronaut Mental Health study. Shukla also looked at muscle cell stem cultures through a microscope to understand the muscle repair process in weightlessness,” Nasa said in an update.

“Thoughts over Gravity” (PhotonGrav) is a study testing how well a special brain-computer interface works in space using a device called Cortivision fNIRS.

This device measures brain activity using near-infrared light. The goal is to see if astronauts can use their brain signals to interact with computers while in microgravity like on the International Space Station.

The main goals of the study are:

• To see if this brain-computer system can work for communication in space.
• To check if the device can measure how focused a person is on a task by looking at brain activity in specific areas (called the DLPFC and MFG).
• To find out what kinds of interference or errors happen in microgravity that affect brain signal readings.
• To test if using motion sensors (like accelerometers and gyroscopes) can help remove or reduce those errors.
• To understand how hard or easy it is for astronauts to use this brain-computer system and how satisfied they are with it.
• To create and test a new way to process brain signals in real-time, making the system more effective during space missions.

In short, the study is exploring how astronauts might use their brains — literally — to control or communicate with computers in space, even in challenging low-gravity conditions.

Working on his 14-day mission, Group Captain Shukla has been leading seven Indian studies and recently recorded a video for students explaining to them how the human digestive system adapts to space.

Meanwhile, veteran astronaut and Ax-4 Commander Peggy Whitson assisted Tibor Kapu with the biomedical hardware and measured his blood pressure inside the Tranquillity module.

“Both studies are supported by different organisations, with the first seeking to prevent space-caused blood clots and the second to protect crew visual processing and perception in microgravity,” Nasa said.

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