Garmin smartwatches will be used to monitor the health of crew members during an upcoming Polaris Dawn space mission, helping scientists understand how space travel affects the human body.

Health data from the Fēnix 7 adventure watches will provide round-the-clock insights into the impact of space travel on the human body. 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 crew members’ biometrics such as heart rate, pulse oximetry and sleep patterns, all on a single battery charge.

“Garmin is honoured to be a part of this exciting research effort that will advance the understanding of how the human body adapts to the rigours of space flight,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president. “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.”

The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (Trish) at Baylor College of Medicine is supporting health and biomedical research aboard the Polaris Dawn mission, which will attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown with humans and complete the first-ever commercial spacewalk.

The Polaris Dawn crew and the Trish team chose Garmin smartwatches for the mission because of their long battery life, rugged 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,” said 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.”

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Polaris Dawn crew aboard a Dragon spacecraft from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, later this year.

Polaris Dawn is the first of the Polaris programme’s three human spaceflight missions. SpaceX is targeting no earlier than March 2023 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Polaris Dawn will try to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown, attempt the first-ever commercial spacewalk, conduct research to further understanding of human health on Earth and during future long-duration spaceflights, and test Starlink’s laser-based communications in space.

Trish is a virtual institute empowered by Nasa’s human research programme to solve the problems of human deep space exploration. It pursues and funds research to deliver high-impact scientific and technological options that advance space health and help humans thrive wherever they explore, in space or on Earth.