Hand posture analyzer: A facility for the study of the human upper limb on the international space station

The research objective of the Italian Facility Hand Posture Analyzer (HPA) is to investigate the performance degradation of the human upper limb muscle-skeletal apparatus and its morphological - functional modifications during long term exposition to weightlessness, and to study the role of gravity in the planning - execution hierarchy of reaching, grasping, manipulating and transporting objects.