Abstract #1252

Design of a Permanent Magnet for MRI of the Ankle on the International Space Station

Aaron R. Purchase¹, Gordon E. Sarty², Logi Vidarrson³, Keith Wachowicz¹, Piotr Liszkowski^4,5, Hongwei Sun¹, Jonathan C. Sharp¹, and Boguslaw Tomanek^1,6

¹Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, ²Department of Psychology and Division of Biomedical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, ³LT Imaging, Toronto, ON, Canada, ⁴AGH University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland, ⁵MRI-Tech Sp. z o.o, Krakow, Poland, ⁶Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Krakow, Poland

MRI is desired for monitoring bone and muscle deterioration in astronauts during long-term spaceflights and on the International Space Station (ISS). However, the magnet is generally too heavy to be transported to the ISS. Therefore, we designed a light (~10kg) magnet that allows transmit array spatial encoding (TRASE) MRI of the ankle on the ISS. The magnet is based on a sparse Halbach geometry with magnetic block-pairs. The positions of the block-pairs were optimized using a genetic algorithm. We intend to manufacture the magnet and test the entire MRI system on a Falcon 20 jet.

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