Mission Journal 4 — Topside Report: Mission Day 1: Wednesday, April 20th, 2005
Greetings from NEEMO Topside!
We are happy to announce that the NEEMO 8 mission got off to a great start today with a 10:19 EDT (approximate) Splashdown. NEEMO 8 was sponsored by the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters for the purpose of investigating earth—based exploration analogs to help transition our workforce to fulfill the Vision for Space Exploration. The primary objective was to demonstrate the capabilities of NOAA’s Aquarius habitat and the NEEMO Project to provide an Exploration Analog for planetary exploration tasks, operational concept development, and crew and control center synergy while operating remote vehicles.
Along with veteran habitat technicians Craig Cooper and Joe March from UNCW is a crew of 4 NEEMO veterans from NASA: Commander Mike Gernhardt, Scott Kelly, Danny Olivas, and Monika Schultz.
Today’s activities were highlighted by a series of in–water EVAs outfitted in space–analog type hard hats (Superlite 17s donated by the U.S. Navy.) The air was supplied by umbilicals fed from Aquarius. The task for the crew was to take basic data of their surrounding environment, which was fed to our control team in Houston (in the Exploration and Planning Operations Center, or ExPOC). Using this data, the ExPOC started putting together a detailed map of the surface bathymetry and obstructions in the immediate area, which will be used to plan and execute a drill tomorrow where they search for some “lost” tools using Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs). But more about that tomorrow…
Thanks for following along. More to come!
— NEEMO 7 Topside Team (Marc Reagan, Bill Todd, Michelle Lucas, and Dan Sedej back in Houston)