NASA’s underwater
practice session is the indication of what a real space mission to an asteroid
would be like. NEEMO 16 (NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations) is the
simulated mission on the action at the Aquarius deep-sea habitat. The idea is
to simulate the logistics associated with an extended space mission, as well as
the isolation, by sending an astronaut crew into the Aquarius, 63 feet below
the Atlantic Ocean’s surface in the Florida Keys, and have them practice the
routines they’d be doing in scuba gear.
The summer’s 12-day
simulation began on Monday with the four-person crew’s splashdown into the sea.
The NEEMO 16 crew is headed by NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Linden burger, who
flew into space on the shuttle Discovery in 2010, and also includes Japanese
astronaut Kimiya Yui, British astronaut Timothy Peake and Cornell astronomer
Steve Squyres. Aquarius habitat technicians Justin Brown and James Talacek play
support roles underwater.
Last year marked the
first time that the NEEMO exercise was designed in line with the space agency’s
current plan to send a crew to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025. The crew is
experimenting with different ways to explore an asteroid-style surface. A small
asteroid has nearly negligible gravity so astronauts won’t be able to tramp
across it as in earth or even the moon.
An option would be to use mini-spacecraft to hover over and touch down
on the surface. Another option would be to use attachment points and handholds
to move across the asteroid surface.
Both techniques are
being tested during NEEMO 16. The crew members also plan to conduct a variety
of experiments. They experiment on the atmospheric pressure inside the Aquarius
habitat which is equal to the surrounding water pressure at depth. The
experiments will show whether simple tasks such as blowing a bubble or
operating a remote-controlled device are tougher at high pressure than they are
at normal pressure.
Keywords:- NEEMO 16, Asteroid, NEEMO Exercise, Astronaut, NASA.
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