Garmin’s Fenix 7 smartwatches will be worn by astronauts, monitoring their vital signs during the five-day mission.
According to Garmin, researchers will use the wearables to continuously monitor and collect crew members’ biometrics such as heart rate, pulse oximetry, and sleep patterns.
The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled to launch from SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida this Spring.
The crew of four – all private citizens rather than NASA astronauts – will attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown with humans and complete the first-ever commercial spacewalk.
“Garmin is honored to be a part of this exciting research effort that will advance the understanding of how the human body adapts to the rigors of space flight,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global sales.
The Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, is supporting health and biomedical research aboard the mission and will gather the smartwatch data.
"The trove of biometric data provided by Garmin Fenix 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."