THE SLOW ROTATING CENTRIFUGE MICROSCOPE NIZEMI - A VERSATILE INSTRUMENT FOR TERRESTRIAL HYPERGRAVITY AND SPACE MICROGRAVITY RESEARCH IN BIOLOGY AND MATERIALS SCIENCE

NIZEMI (slow rotating centrifuge microscope) is a tool for optical inv estigations of small biological and non-biological specimens during va riable accelerations. Two laboratory models for ground research design ed for accelerations from 1 to 5 x g and 10 x g respectively are used for terrestrial research, especially in gravitational biology. A space facility was developed and built for the Spacelab mission IML-2 durin g which eight experiments were performed successfully. The specificati ons and topic design features of the NIZEMI models are presented in th is paper.