Austria’s first female astronaut conducts research in Innsbruck

A young Carinthian doctor is well on her way to becoming Austria's first woman in space. With admirable energy and exceptional skills, she has managed to join the elite circle of astronauts at European Space Agency (ESA). The fact that she is researching and studying in Innsbruck is proof of the high quality of our university.

"I won't have access to my inbox until February 8 due to Winter Survival Training." The automatically generated email response from Dr. Carmen Possnig (36) to my interview request at the beginning of the year does not really reveal why this young woman is training to survive in winter. However, the fact that she is undergoing such training at all is a first indication of her mission: she is Austria's first female astronaut. If something goes wrong when the space capsule lands, she will have to survive even in the harshest winter until she is rescued.

Magellan and Robert Scott as role models

Even at elementary school, she dreamed of flying into space, she tells me. "Star Wars and Star Trek certainly contributed to the fact that I had such childhood dreams as a girl". She read enthusiastically about the voyages of discovery of Ferdinand Magellan, the first person to circumnavigate the earth in a ship, or about polar explorers such as Robert Falcon Scott. She had read his diary and was fascinated. At the time, she would hardly have believed that she would one day spend 13 months at the South Pole.

As strange as it sounds: Their way to the Concordia research station in Antarctica and then her inclusion in the elite group of ESA astronauts was more or less foreshadowed during her medical studies. Carmen Possnig completed her studies in Graz with a thesis investigating the effects of artificial gravity on orthostatic tolerance. In layman's terms, orthostatic tolerance describes the body's ability to maintain stable blood pressure and blood flow when changing to an upright position (e.g. from lying to standing) in order to avoid symptoms such as dizziness or fainting. What made the work unique was that the study was based on the assumption of artificial gravity, as can be produced in space stations through rotation.

A newsletter as a career booster

Signing up for the ESA newsletter was the direct trigger for a unique career that will almost certainly take the young Carinthian into space. When a research position at the Antarctic station was advertised in one of the newsletters, she applied. "The text was something like this: we are looking for a doctor who is not afraid of the cold. I applied to and was accepted." Her first childhood dream came true: she followed in the footsteps of her idol Robert Falcon Scott, who was the second person to reach the South Pole.

It was one of her professors who drew her attention early on to this ESA research station, which can fill a place on the crew of the Concordia research station in Antarctica every year. Four years later, the time had come.

What do 13 months in the complete isolation of the South Pole, ten of them in total isolation, do? "It's kind of alien. You can only arrive and depart in summer. That lasts from the end of November to the beginning of February. The rest of the time you live in complete isolation. The sun disappears for four months, but you can enjoy a beautiful starry sky." However, it is just as difficult for laypeople to imagine minus 80 degrees and the polar night.

"Where the night lasts four months and a warm day is minus 50 degrees"

Two doctors were members of the 12-strong crew on the station. Possnig carried out medical research while her Italian colleague was responsible for emergency medicine. She researched how human skills change in isolation. For example, to see whether astronauts can still land a spaceship safely after long flights through space. The most striking result of her work: a person's skills decline over the Antarctic winter. "You kind of get dumber," she says, "because your memory goes down". For anyone interested in her work at the South Pole in detail, I recommend her book: "South of the End of the World.Where the night lasts four months and a warm day is minus 50 degrees".

Research studies in Innsbruck

Since 2020, astronaut-to-be Carmen Possnig has been completing a research degree at our university in Innsbruck with Univ.-Prof. Justin Lawley, PhD. Born in Wales, he has already carried out research for NASA and has invited Possnig to conduct research into the effects of microgravity on the cardiovascular system and blood flow to the brain. Again, a topic of space medicine. After all, future interplanetary flights will take several months, if not years.

Weightlessness in the plunge pool

As a 'reservist', she will remain in her traditional job for the time being, but is regularly called up for training courses. Such as the winter survival course in the Pyrenees at minus 15 degrees or a diving course to simulate weightlessness. The European astronauts train spacewalks and outdoor missions in the depths of a large basin in which parts of the International Space Station (ISS) can also be submerged.

Tough training courses

The fact that she was selected as ESA's replacement astronaut in November 2022 from more than 22,500 applications (!) was almost logical. Her achievements at the Antarctic station and the results of her scientific research were certainly decisive factors in her selection, along with her physical fitness - she loves long-distance hiking, bouldering and aikido.

Austria can benefit from their work

Further training will follow in fall 2025. For example, survival training on the high seas in the event that a space capsule lands in the sea and cannot be found immediately. The ESA astronaut reserve will also complete a parabolic flight, during which real weightlessness can be simulated for a short time. A further two-month training block will then follow next year.

It is not yet possible to say what will happen next. However, Carmen Possnig is very confident that she will actually fly into space. One of her colleagues, the Swede Marcus Wandt, has already flown into space as a reserve astronaut, while the Pole Slawosz Usnanski - also a reserve astronaut - will launch in a few weeks' time. What will their tasks be on the space station? "I will be carrying out experiments for Austrian companies. With ESA support, Austria could put together a mission on the ISS and the experiments for it itself. But it's a political decision."

My reading tip

Carmen Possnig's description of her stay at the South Pole, the breathtaking beauty but also the months of darkness or temperatures around -80 degrees: https://www.thalia.at/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1057819601