The mission will include multiple health studies on the four astronauts to determine how radiation, microgravity, isolation and other factors impact their physical health, mind and behavior — crucial information that will help pave the way for future lunar surface missions and develop our understanding about humans’ deep space capabilities.

Thanks to new technology and modern medicine, researchers have better ways to understand the impact of space flight on human health.

“Artemis II is both a historic and biomedically important mission,” says  Emmanuel Urquieta, the �鶹ԭ�� College of Medicine’s vice chair for aerospace medicine and director of the university’s new Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (CASEEM).

“For the first time since Apollo 17, humans will travel beyond the Earth’s magnetic field. That matters enormously from a research perspective, because now we have technology to thoroughly understand the health impact of embarking into deep space. The knowledge gained from Artemis II will help shape the future of safe human space exploration and drive innovations that can benefit medicine here on Earth and help us start preparing us for a mission to Mars.”

The Space Coast’s College of Medicine

As the closest medical school to the Kennedy Space Center, �鶹ԭ��’s College of Medicine is charting a new frontier in healthcare as humans prepare for longer missions to the moon and Mars, and commercial space flights take more civilians into space.

The goal: explore how factors such as microgravity, radiation and isolation impact the human body in space and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention on Earth.

To further those efforts, �鶹ԭ��’s CASEEM includes faculty experts in medicine, engineering, computer science, psychology, arts and educational leadership. This interdisciplinary group will work together to research and develop new technologies for keeping space travelers healthy, as well as soldiers on military missions, deep sea explorers and mountain climbers.

What Lies Ahead for Artemis II’s Astronauts

• Understanding Radiation Exposure Effects

Traveling to the moon — which humans haven’t returned to since 1972 — means astronauts will go beyond Earth’s Van Allen belts, which protect humans from cosmic radiation and solar storms. Space travelers to the International Space Station stay within Earth’s magnetic field. During their 10-day mission, Artemis II is anticipated to break Apollo 13’s record (248,655 miles) for the farthest distance humans have traveled from Earth.

Fifty years ago, researchers could do little more than measure radiation. This time will be different, says �鶹ԭ��’s William “Ed” Powers, chief medical officer of CASEEM and the former chief of NASA’s Medical Operations branch where he was a primary medical support physician for six shuttle missions.

“Medical knowledge, technology and the ability to diagnose disease have advanced significantly since then,” he says.

Physicians and scientists will be able to determine how radiation impacts cells, organs, blood proteins and other molecular functions.

Artemis crew members will carry dosimeters in their pockets that measure radiation exposure in real time. Monitors inside the Orion spacecraft will also gather radiation information throughout the flight for future analysis.

An astronaut suffering a medical condition in space is always a concern, but deep space travel brings additional challenges, Powers explains. While astronauts on the International Space Station can be returned to Earth in about a day, as happened recently when a crew member became ill, returning from the moon may take several days or more.

“None of the four astronauts on this flight is a physician,” Powers says. “And a space capsule certainly doesn’t have the same equipment you’d have in a hospital emergency room.”

• Does Space Flight Reduce Immunity?

Previous research has shown that spaceflight missions alter the and reactivate dormant viruses in the human body. As part of the Artemis II mission, NASA will conduct an AVATAR (A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) experiment that will investigate how deep space impacts specific cells and tissues as well as some vital bodily functions including immune system responses.

For this experiment, NASA-funded scientists created “organ-on-a-chip” devices that contain each astronaut’s bone marrow cells. This technology allows scientists to examine molecular changes and cell function.

“With this technology we can see how the body responds to stimuli across the whole mission,” says Jennifer Fogarty, CASEEM’s chief scientist who came to �鶹ԭ�� after serving as chief scientist for NASA’s Human Research Program. “This capability will help us map the body’s molecular changes with tissue/organ function and much better predictive capabilities.”

As the “organ-on-a-chip” technology advances and proves accurate, it will allow NASA physicians to provide personalized and proactive medicine to astronauts because they will be able to predict a crew member’s biological response to space flight. Such technology could be used before NASA sends an actual crew to Mars. The space agency could place the crew’s personalized chips on unmanned flights to the Red Planet to better understand the potential health risks for each individual.

“It’s basically sending small versions of astronauts to Mars before we send astronauts to Mars,” Fogarty says.

• Teamwork and Behavior

Selecting an astronaut crew that will perform well under the stresses of space flight is always a top NASA priority. But deep space missions present additional personnel challenges, including communication delays, increased isolation and resource constraints.

Astronauts on moon and Mars missions also must live in a capsule that is significantly smaller than the International Space Station, highlighting the need for crews to work together seamlessly and be able to manage any conflicts.

The Artemis flight will conduct an experiment called ARCHeR (Artemis Research for Crew Health and Readiness) that will evaluate how astronauts perform individually and as a team during the mission.

They will wear sleep and movement monitors before, during and after the mission to evaluate their cognition and team dynamics.

“You watch the astronauts on TV, and it looks so easy,” Fogarty says. “But human performance is critical in space. You have multiple duties to conduct and you’re always pushing operations. So we need to understand how the team performs, their reserve and resilience. The mission itself is the experiment.”

Star Nona 2026

�鶹ԭ��’s leading space medicine experts, valued strategic partners and an astronaut who holds NASA’s record for spacewalks will gather April 10 in Lake Nona’s Medical City to discuss how they can work together to keep space travelers healthy and use that research to create groundbreaking clinical innovations on Earth.

The “Star Nona 2026” event is led by the Lake Nona Research Council, which is focused on encouraging interdisciplinary scientific partnerships between industry, academia and healthcare.

The council includes physicians and researchers from �鶹ԭ��, Orlando Health, AdventHealth, the Florida Space Institute, the Orlando VA Medical Center, Nemours Children’s Health, business and industry.

For more information, including how to register for the event, visit www.ucf.edu/news/progressing-the-final-frontier-of-medicine-space.

Founded to reach the moon, we’re already on our way to the next frontier. Built for liftoff, America’s Space University celebrates �鶹ԭ�� Space Week Nov. 3 -7.

Where Global Leaders Unite to Boldly Forge the Future of Space

�鶹ԭ��’s College of Medicine is charting a new frontier in healthcare as humans prepare for longer missions to moon, Mars and beyond. The goal: explore how factors such as microgravity, radiation and isolation impact the human body in space and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention for patients on Earth.

As part of that effort, two internationally known experts recently joined the medical school’s faculty as part of a new �鶹ԭ�� center that will lead research and technology development for improving health in extreme environments such as space.

William (Ed) Powers, M.D., joins �鶹ԭ�� after serving as director of flight medicine for Axiom Space and former chief of NASA’s Medical Operations Branch, where he was the primary medical support physician for six shuttle missions and four Soyuz missions launched from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station.

Jennifer Fogarty, Ph.D., was chief scientist for NASA’s Human Research Program, where she led efforts to reduce the health risks of space travelers, including those traveling to Mars.

The two are part of the leadership of �鶹ԭ��’s new Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (CASEEM), serving as chief medical officer and chief scientist, respectively. The multidisciplinary center includes �鶹ԭ�� faculty experts in medicine, engineering, computer science, psychology, arts, and educational leadership who will work together to research and develop new technologies for keeping space travelers healthy as well as soldiers on military missions, deep sea explorers, and mountain climbers.

“�鶹ԭ�� is assembling a team of superstars to create a program that will allow us to harness knowledge obtained in space to solve our problems here on Earth,” says Deborah German, �鶹ԭ��’s vice president for health affairs and College of Medicine dean. “We will also be training future generations to continue this quest.”

�鶹ԭ�� Center Is Most Interdisciplinary in Space Industry

The new center is led by Emmanuel Urquieta, M.D., the College of Medicine’s vice chair for aerospace medicine. An internationally recognized space medicine expert, Urquieta joined �鶹ԭ�� in 2024 to expand research into how spaceflight affects humans and create a space medicine curriculum for students across the university.

He says �鶹ԭ��’s location near the Kennedy Space Center and the opportunity to collaborate in research and education across 12 colleges are major assets in making the university a recognized leader in space medicine.

“There couldn’t be a better location to study the health effects of human space flight,” he says.

Those discoveries also could help patients on Earth. For example, technologies developed to protect astronauts from radiation could help cancer patients receiving radiation therapy. Understanding how space travel advances aging and inflammatory processes in the body could uncover new anti-aging therapies.

Urquieta called the new �鶹ԭ�� center “more interdisciplinary than any other in space industry.” There, �鶹ԭ�� faculty physicians will work with engineers and computer scientists to create and test new technologies to diagnose and treat health problems in the confines of space and other extreme environments. Psychology faculty will help identify solutions to the mental health implications of space travel, including isolation and living in a confined area. Leadership science researchers will identify the best ways to select and train astronaut teams for optimum effectiveness.

Urquieta says the new �鶹ԭ�� technologies will also be relevant to the military and can help improve access to healthcare in remote and isolated areas across the globe.

New M.D. Faculty Completed Residency Training at Orlando Health

Powers has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and has guided multiple research projects for commercial space medicine with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He led the aerospace medicine residency program at the University of Texas Medical Branch and is a Fulbright Scholar. An emergency medicine physician, he did his residency training at Orlando Health, where he served as chief resident.

As a NASA physician, he supported six space shuttle missions including STS 135, the final flight of the Space Shuttle Program.

“I stood on the landing strip, and I was able to climb on board Atlantis right after they landed,” he says. “It was quite a memorable experience to close out the space shuttle program in that way.”

Powers also was a physician who supported American astronauts launching on Russian spacecraft. He participated in astronaut training and even spent 14 days in quarantine with the astronauts before they launched out of Kazakhstan. The astronauts were in space for six months and Powers helped them get medically acclimated to life back on Earth.

He recalls loading astronaut Mike Barratt onto a Russian helicopter after he landed.

“I handed him a bottle of water, and he sat there and stared at it because (in zero gravity) he hadn’t seen water go to the bottom of a bottle for about six months,” Powers says. He just kept staring and said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’”

Powers was in SpaceX mission control when Axiom Space launched the very first all private manned space mission to the International Space Station in 2022. He supported two additional all private missions for Axiom, serving as the lead flight surgeon for the Ax3 mission.

Powers says he first became interested in space flight at age 15, when he started taking flying lessons. In his new role at �鶹ԭ��, he will conduct FAA medical clearance exams for private and commercial pilots at the �鶹ԭ�� Health Faculty Physician Practice. He says he believes �鶹ԭ�� is well positioned to be a leader in space medicine and research.

“The platform of commercial space exploration is in its infancy now, but it’s really the way of the future,” Powers says. “Commercial spaceflight planners need expertise in how to deal with humans in the extreme environment of space flight. We can provide that for them.”

The Health Risks of Space Travel

The space industry recognizes the exposures that occur during space travel — including reduced gravity, isolation, confinement and radiation exposure — that may have negative health and performance impacts during and after a mission. Before coming to �鶹ԭ��, Fogarty spent 17 years researching those risks and how to prevent and mitigate them. At NASA, she was the clinical translational scientist with Medical Operations Division and subsequently, chief scientist of the Human Research Program, where she managed a $145 million research budget dedicated to reducing the health and performance risks associated with expeditionary space travel such as the Mars mission. She also served as chief scientific officer and a faculty member with the Translational Research Institute for Space Health at Baylor College of Medicine, which focuses on developing innovative solutions for those risks.

NASA and international partner astronauts undergo rigorous medical screening before and monitoring after spaceflight missions. As commercial spaceflight expands, more civilians, with more varied medical histories, will live and work in space. So the space industry will need to have new technologies to handle medical situations at times when a trained physician is not onboard and in the small austere confines of a space capsule.

“When you put people into space and their life is unfolding, and unpredictable health issues emerge as they do, how are we prepared to handle that?” Fogarty says. “Those people will not have access to the robust healthcare resources that we have on Earth.”

“For example, cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer of people on Earth,” she continues. “The question came up while at NASA about putting astronauts on cholesterol management pharmaceuticals like statins. Well that seems reasonable to manage cholesterol and get cardiovascular risks low. But statins have side effects, and it would be very unfortunate to have a bad side effect when someone’s in space.”

Fogarty says she has always been fascinated by science and medicine since she was a child and was inspired by relatives’ careers as physicians and nurses.

“I always loved being out in nature, observing, playing and conserving,” she says. “They have a picture of me from when I was about 3 with my pockets full of frogs.”

“I believe �鶹ԭ�� will be a strong part of that ecosystem enabling research and operational support and providing occupational health knowledge and care.” — Jennifer Fogarty, chief scientist for �鶹ԭ��’s Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine

Space exploration and the sacrifices made were always a source of inspiration. She saw the Challenger explode on TV as a youngster and was a postdoctoral researcher at Kennedy Space Center during the Columbia accident. She says those experiences have solidified in her the promise and the dangers of space flight. Fogarty says she is thrilled to be at �鶹ԭ��, where she can work with university leaders to create a nationally recognized center for aerospace medicine and technology development.

“We’ve had the International Space Station for over 20 years and have had on the order of 100 people living and working in space. Now as commercial space ramps up, thousands are projected to go into space and be productive workers for different agencies, companies or countries,” she says. “I believe �鶹ԭ�� will be a strong part of that ecosystem enabling research and operational support and providing occupational health knowledge and care.”