Spaceflight blood diagnostics need innovation. Few demonstrations have been published illustrating in-flight, reduced-gravity health diagnostic technology. Here we present a method for construction and operation of a parabolic flight test rig for a prototype point-of-care flow-cytometry design, with components and preparation strategies adaptable to other setups.
Phipps, W. S., Yin, Z., Bae, C., Sharpe, J. Z., Bishara, A. M., Nelson, E. S., Weaver, A. S., Brown, D., McKay, T. L., Griffin, D., Chan, E. Y. Reduced-gravity Environment Hardware Demonstrations of a Prototype Miniaturized Flow Cytometer and Companion Microfluidic Mixing Technology. J. Vis. Exp. (93), e51743, doi:10.3791/51743 (2014).