Investigations on the effects of gravity on living systems, especially the perception and transduction of this important environmental parameter, are in the focus of the German Space Life Sciences Program since several years. This program is managed – like all other space activities – by the German Aerospace Center DLR in its role as the German Space Agency. Funding of scientists, placing contracts to industry for the development of necessary space research facilities, and providing flight opportunities for performing space experiments including international coordination with other space agencies are the main responsibilities of the agency. In the present contribution the special features of the various flight opportunities, which are made available by DLR for life sciences research, are described in some detail. By this, scientists should become aware of the interesting possibilities to perform space research in the frame of the German Space Life Sciences Program, while other contributions in this special publications will focus on the results obtained, especially in the area of gravity signal transduction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.