Nasa commits $11.2 million to develop circadian lighting system

NASA has committed to spend $11.2 million (£6.9 million) on developing a colour-changing LED system which will encourage astronauts to sleep by mimicking their natural circadian rhythms. It is hoped that the space agency’s research will also improve scientific understanding of circadian lighting.

Astronauts have long struggled with their ability to get a restful sleep in space, with around half of them resorting to sleeping tablets. Demanding schedules and unusual environments mean that their allocated eight and a half hours sleep is often restricted to just six. This can lead to depression, illness and mistakes.

The new systems, which are being designed by Boeing, alternate between red, white and blue light and will replace the existing fluorescent lamps on spacecraft by 2016.

To date, the research into the health implications of circadian lighting is inconclusive but it is thought that blue light supresses melatonin, a hormone made by the pineal gland in brain that induces sleep. The blue light also stimulates the production of melanopsin, a pigment found in cells in the retina, that send nerve impulses to parts of the brain, boosting alertness. In contrast, red light reverses the process, encouraging sleepiness, while melanopsin is reduced.

Doctors, shift workers and anyone whose performance is likely to be impaired with a circadian rhythm sleep disorder may see the benefits of a colour-changing sold state lighting module (SSLM)similar to the one being developed by Nasa.

Daniel Shultz, satellite systems engineer at the Kennedy Space Center said, “By refining multipurpose lights for astronaut safety, health and well-being in spaceflight, the door is opened for new lighting strategies that can be evolved for use on earth.”

Learn more about circadian lighting, how it works and also how you can introduce it into your everyday life (not just for spacemen). Integrated in PhotonStar products with ChromaWhite™ technology.

A brief diagram of how our circadian rhythm works over the duration of the day is below.

Circadian Lighting - ChromaWhite LED Technology

The possibilities range from the simple to the technologically advanced, from lowering wayfinding lights (so as to avoid exciting certain cells in the eyes that cue wakefulness) to creating dynamic fenestration technologies that integrate daylighting with electrical lighting, automatically adjusting brightness and colour balance in harmony with circadian fluctuations. 

The applications vary too, from helping patients reduce hospital stay times or optimizing students’ learning to minimizing the photobiological impact of outdoor lighting to help restore ecosystems.The preservation of the night—and of the day—is very important to the maintenance of our health and well-being,” says 

Deborah Burnett, explaining that our increasing lack of daylight during daytime hours and the growing prevalence of blue-rich light at night (from glowing screens and other sources) disrupts metabolic function, immune response, cognitive performance—even genetic expression. 

Benya and Burnett outlined “the monetary and human costs of circadian desynchronization,” from lowered productivity and increased workplace accidents caused by fatigue to the link between depressed melatonin levels and increased cancer risk. They also explored the benefits of daylighting and “circadian adaptive lighting”—lighting that emulates or complements nature’s cycles of light and dark, as well as the changes in colour quality and direction that the sun’s light waves exhibit over the course of a day. “This is a very exciting time to be a lighting designer,” says Burnett, explaining that the growing body of research in photobiology poses both a challenge and an opportunity for those in the lighting field: to “go beyond aesthetics, and actually enhance human health and function.”

ChromaWhite VCCT solutions are designed to contribute to a circadian adaptive lighting solution, and provides not only colour tunable solutions by changing the CCT, but the spectral distribution is closer to normal daylight variation, with considerably lower ratios of blue to red (circadian to photopic) when warmer light (around 2700K) is delivered than other LED tuneable systems. This is an essential consideration for superior circadian solutions. View the whole PDF on Circadian Adaptive Lighting.

View 'The Evolution of Light' image below to see how lighting technology has improved over the years. (Click to enlarge)

View the video below to learn more about how light can affect your health and the way you act.

View ChromaWhite website

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