Orienting attention in the space around us is a fundamental prerequisite for willed actions. On Earth, at 1 g, orienting attention requires the integration of vestibular signals and vision, although the specific vestibular contribution to voluntary and automatic components of visuospatial attention remains largely unknown. Here, we show that unweighting of the otolith organ in zero gravity during parabolic flight, selectively enhances stimulus-driven capture of automatic visuospatial attention, while weakening voluntary maintenance of covert attention. These findings, besides advancing our comprehension of the basic influence of the vestibular function on voluntary and automatic components of visuospatial attention, may have operational implications for the identification of effective countermeasures to be applied in forthcoming human deep space exploration and habitation, and on Earth, for patients’ rehabilitation.

This article describes the results of the space cluster of the Use-it-wisely project, which is investigating new business models implementing continuous product-service adaptation through a sequence of small innovative steps in six key industry sectors (clusters): energy, machinery, space, office workspace, vehicles manufacturing and shipbuilding. Six independent cluster developments and a common platform compose the main output. The space cluster (composed by TAS-I, ALTEC and Vastalla) researches a quick response through the use of model-based and simulation-based processes enabled by distributed environments across different organizations. TAS-I and ALTEC study the use of a web-based environment, a model-based tool and virtual reality and its interfaces with potential customers, using an internal project as reference case, including space and ground segments. Vastalla studies and develops the infrastructure able to connect different environments in different networks, including a customer front-end. This article shows the identified issues on collaboration with model-based approaches and the expected benefits.

This chapter describes the Space cluster use case using the innovative Space Tug project as an example. It provides an overview of the objectives (customer in the loop, quicker technical response) and related methods to support foreseen improvements through a dedicated toolchain. The IT infrastructure used for the demonstration is used as an enabling and demonstrative system with a focus on modelling and collaboration aspects, as outlined in Chapter “ Extending the System Model ”, on the flow of information, and on tool infrastructure and project costs. Descriptions of the developed tools are as follows: