Counting steps and getting notifications via smartwatch is a tale of the past, the new age Garmin Fenix 7 will provide 24/7 insights into the impact of space travel on the human body.
The Garmin smartwatch is a part of the upcoming Polaris Dawn human spaceflight research effort that will advance the understanding of how the human body adapts to the rigours of space flight. The historic Polaris Dawn mission will attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown with humans and complete the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
During the up to five-day mission launched from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, researchers will continuously monitor and collect all four crew members’ biometrics such as heart rate, pulse oximetry, and sleep patterns via the Fenix smartwatches, that too on a single battery charge.
Once collected, this physiological data will be added to the Translational Research Institute for Space Health’s (TRISH) Expand database, aiding current and future research to study and understand human health and performance for all future human space exploration missions.
Why Garmin smartwatches for the mission, you ask? The Polaris Dawn crew and the TRISH team picked it because of their long battery life, rugged durability and those extensive all-day health monitoring features.