[meteorite-list] NASA Announces Two Upcoming Undersea Missions

[Ron Baalke]

June 10, 2014
     
NASA Announces Two Upcoming Undersea Missions

NASA is returning to the bottom of the ocean. Twice this summer, aquanauts 
participating in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) will 
conduct activities on the ocean floor that will inform future International 
Space Station and exploration activities.

These studies provide information that correlates directly to life aboard the 
space station, where crew members must frequently perform critical tasks that 
present constraining factors similar to those experienced in an undersea 
environment.

"It is both challenging and exciting for our astronaut crews to participate 
in these undersea missions in preparation for spaceflight," says Bill Todd, 
NEEMO project manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It is 
critical that we perform science applicable to NASA's exploration goals in 
a high-fidelity space operational context. The extreme environment of life 
undersea is as close to being in space as possible."

NEEMO 18, a nine-day mission beginning July 21, will focus on studies in 
behavioral health and performance, human health issues, and habitability.
Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) 
will command NEEMO 18. He will be joined by NASA astronauts Jeanette Epps and 
Mark Vande Hei and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

NEEMO 19, which begins Sept. 7 and runs seven days, will focus on the 
evaluation of tele-mentoring operations for ESA. Telementoring is when a crew 
member is given instruction for a task by an expert who is located remotely 
but is virtually present via a video and voice connection. NASA astronaut 
Randy Bresnik will command this second mission. He will be joined by Canadian 
Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, and 
Herve Stevenin, ESA's Head of Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Training at the 
European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany.

Both NEEMO missions will include EVA objectives and engineering 
investigations to mature technologies and training techniques for use on the 
space station and in asteroid exploration. These EVAs will focus on 
evaluating man-machine work systems and EVA tools and techniques for 
exploration tasks in varying levels of gravity ranging from that of asteroids 
to the gravity of Martian moons and Mars itself. The EVAs also will evaluate 
techniques to address re-planning of exploration operations accounting for 
different communications time delays.

The missions also will investigate tools to help astronauts learn new 
procedures while in flight. One such tool for the "just in time training" 
that is delivered to the crew in orbit is "intuitive procedures." These 
procedures use a combination of text, pictures, and videos to instruct the 
crew on how to perform a task that they were never trained on, and are 
presented in a way such that the crew understands it quickly.

The NEEMO crews will live 62 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, 
5.4 nautical miles off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, in Florida 
International University's undersea research habitat Aquarius Reef Base, 
along with two professional habitat technicians.

To request interviews with the NEEMO 18 or 19 crews during their mission, 
contact William Jeffs of NASA at william.p.jeffs at nasa.gov, Toshitami 
Ikeda or Fuki Taniguchi of JAXA at ikeda.toshitami at jaxa.jp  or 
taniguchi.fuki at jaxa.jp], Rosita Suennson of ESA at rosita.suenson at esa.int, 
or the CSA media relations team at media at asc-csa.gc.ca .

For more information about NEEMO, the crews and links to follow the missions 
on Facebook and Twitter, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/neemo 

For more information about NASA's analog field tests, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/analogs 

-end-

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jbuck at nasa.gov 

William Jeffs
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
william.p.jeffs at nasa.gov