An important question we face prior to returning to the moon is how to maximize the human and robotic resources we have. We have successfully demonstrated that human operators on Earth can control robots on a distant world with numerous Mars missions. We routinely use robotics on the space shuttle and space station that are controlled by in situ astronauts. And we have the experience of hundreds of suited spacewalks. What we don’t have much experience with is optimizing between the three options. Crew time is precious, so it’s advantageous to move operations to ground controllers wherever possible. The ground has the time delay to deal with, but they have advantages like being able to work all night long while the crew is sleeping. In short, there is always a tradeoff between the more precious crew time and the (expected) higher efficiency of crew work. How to optimize the split of work between spacewalk work, crew controlled robotics, and ground controlled robotics is an important question that needs to be answered prior to returning to the moon.
The remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) on this NEEMO mission performs the role of the robot. It can be a surface rover, or a free flyer (resembling the end of a robotic arm.) It can be controlled by the control center in Houston, or the in situ crew. As the mission continues, we have been experimenting with all options and documenting lessons learned to help answer the larger question of how best to split work. Following on the work done on NEEMO 9, we have designed exercises to answer these questions on NEEMO 10. Over the course of multiple missions we expect to have a significant database to help drive our lunar operations concepts.
Just as on the International Space Station, future inhabitants of the moon or Mars will need periodic cargo vehicles to resupply them with the essentials they need to live in such a harsh environment (air, water, food, etc.) The cargo vehicle will be targeted to land close (but not too close!) to their base. It’s also likely that the cargo vehicle will have a homing beacon. So a task astronauts may one day face will be to follow the homing beacon to their cargo vehicle with fresh supplies.
In the last two days we have exercised all of these concepts with different exercises. The Mission Control Center (MCC) team in Houston did a timed exercise to find out how long it took them to find different markers deployed nearby with the ROV. Later the suited crewmembers performed the same task, and the respective times were logged for comparison. Later the MCC team navigated the ROV around the natural obstacles of the reef to a homing beacon hidden hundreds of feet in the distance. This exercise was repeated with suited crewmembers being vectored by the MCC.
Obviously one of the primary science tasks on the moon or Mars will be collecting rock samples. We envision that the crew will find samples on their excursions, the planetary scientists in the MCC will analyze them remotely, and later send the crew back to those locations that looked most interesting to get more samples. This scenario was exercised today, with a planetary scientist from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) group at Johnson Space Center playing her role.
Finally, the crew supported a first ever linkup with representatives of the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC). This government institution is charted with many of the same responsibilities as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States. It was a unique linkup by having representatives of JAMSTEC and NOAA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA together discussing common goals. Perhaps this will be the first step for more meaningful collaboration and partnerships between the agencies in the future.
Thanks for following along,
- NEEMO 10 Topside Team
Mars Day! Today the mission was to test the spacesuit weight configurations as they would feel in the gravity of Mars. The spacesuit used on the moon, NASA’s Mk3 advanced space exploration suit, weighs 300 pounds on Earth, which is about 50 pounds on the moon. On Mars, which is 3/8 the gravity of Earth, the suit would weigh 130 pounds As a comparison, a heavy backpack for a long hiking trip weighs 60 to 80 pounds.
The suits are this heavy because they contain life support, steel joint bearings, and 14 layers of pressure suits. On the moon, the weight was manageable. The data collected during the NEEMO mission will help let NASA know if it will be manageable on Mars.
The team conducted the same physical tests as they did for the moon configured suits. The aquanauts experienced a heavy workload during the exercise, feeling like a cross between Godzilla and a professional linebacker. Afterwards, they agreed that working with that amount of weight load on Mars would be extremely difficult.
While the divers were hard at work, ExPOC tried their hand at driving the remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) to find the marked flags. After a few exploratory trips up and down the sand field, they got the hang of it and found the first marker in short order. Although the current wasn’t as strong as yesterday, ExPOC could tell the difference between driving with and against it. Overall, the Scuttle was very stable and drove quite well both on the ground and in the air. Koichi was able to fly it up the 15 feet into the wet porch, and Karen showed off her ROV dexterity by grabbing a weight belt that was lying on the bottom. During a later dive, K2 and Karen put a few extra weights into its saddlebags to get an idea for its load limits. After about eight pounds it became mired in the sand.
K2 and Karen had a productive afternoon dive retrieving the numbered markers and getting the lay of the land for the second part of the survey exercise.
At lunchtime, K2 participated in a public affairs event that was set up by Fred Gorell of NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Program. It was a fun event and included questions from children at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore who were interested in everything from sharks to spacesuits.
It’s hard to believe we only have one dive left. Tomorrow will be more weight configuration and exploration scenarios, and then a non-diving day to prepare for the 17-hour decompression that starts Thursday evening.
NEEMO 10 mission day 3 opened with the crew exercising some scenarios representative of the things we may do when we return to the moon. We envision that one of the first tasks for a crew returning to the Moon to live will be to survey and map the immediate area around their new home. While satellite maps of the landing site will certainly be available, the detailed maps they develop in situ can then be used by scientists and Mission Control Center personnel to plan the Extra Vehicular Activities for the crew as they work. Similarly, we started this mission with general bathymetric maps of the ocean floor near Aquarius. Today our crew used a navigational device (called a “Cobra Tac”) to record the coordinates of landmarks of interest within a 400 foot radius of Aquarius. This, along with detailed bathymetrical data we’ve previously obtained of the ocean floor will allow us to generate a much more detailed map. The detailed map is required to plan our ROV (rover robot) activities later in the mission, among other things.
The aquanaut tracking system is a centerpiece of our exploration analog activities. When we go back to the Moon to stay, our astronauts will sometimes be going on lengthy excursions away from their base. Obviously for their own safety, as well as for situational awareness for the Mission Control team in Houston, it will be beneficial to know where they are. Think of an air traffic controller seeing a screen showing each airplane in the area - its distance away, its bearing (direction from the tower), and a little track of dots (called “breadcrumbs”) showing where it has been. This is how our aquanaut tracking system works. It has a transceiver mounted above Aquarius which sends ultrasonic signals out across the reef. The aquanauts and/or ROV are outfitted with a transponder. When the transponder gets interrogated by the incoming signal from the transceiver, it replies with identifying information. Thus our mission controllers in the ExPOC and crewmembers inside the habitat know where each aquanaut and the ROV are with respect to the habitat, as well as where they’ve been.
Finally, a cool picture taken at night.
- NEEMO 10 Topside Team
Another wet and busy day on Aquarius. The goal of the morning dive was to map the Aquarius work area with a diver hand-held acoustic navigational device. It uses Doppler acoustic technology and a compass to map the bottom. The key is to start the mapping operation at the same place each time you gather data.
The second objective was to have the Exploration Planning Operations Center (ExPOC ), simulating Houston Mission Control, drive the remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) behind the divers to collect simulated lunar samples. K2 and Drew were the divers on this operation. K2 started out with the navigational device and marked the man-made objects in the sandy work area and the limits of the eastern coral reef boundary. In the south section of the work area, the reef becomes more tongue-and-groove oriented, roughly north/south, so the divers were especially careful to manage the umbilicals over the corals. The conditions were good, but a slight ½-knot current to the south was enough to tug the neutral umbilicals, and make walking ‘uphill’ back to the Aquarius more challenging than downhill. In all, the team mapped almost 20 coral outcrops. If the data is good, it will be a useful baseline for future Aquarius surveys.
The team got the “Scuttle” ROV off to a good start by staging its umbilical at the high-pressure air tanks, away from the habitat work area. The sandy bottom was perfect for driving the Scuttle in bottom crawl mode. Karen N. even perfected a wheelie to hop over the umbilical when necessary!
The exercise portion completed early, so K2 and Drew took advantage of the time to scout out the western edge of the coral reef to prepare for the second part of the exercise. They were eyed the whole time by a quiet but wary-looking silver barracuda.
Lunchtime was a whirlwind of activity as the crew showered, gulped down bags of food, and readied for a one hour public affairs event with Japanese and German filmmakers. Much of the discussion was in Japanese (Otter was surprised at how well Koichi spoke the language!), but the team was able to rave about the unique experience and the NASA/NOAA cooperation that makes it happen.
The afternoon exercise was a physical workout for the divers and a mental dance for the inside tender (IV). Koichi and Karen were outfitted in the moon simulation PLSS rigs and sent out to the sand patch to find ten marked and flagged weights - in order! The IV, K2, kept track of the location of the divers with transponders attached to their rigs (the ’sending’ part of the transponder is located above the Aquarius’ southeast corner) and a computer program. When the team found a marker out of order, she marked the location so that she could send them back when it was in the right sequence. Aside from a little dancing with umbilicals, the team found nine of the ten markers with no trouble in the time allotted.
The second part of their task was the workout! The divers wore the Navy Mark 12 coverall suits, which have weights distributed on your hips, thighs, and shin areas. In order to test different spacesuit weights, the divers tried on six different weight distributions - in a ten-minute endurance test! The test included four laps of the 20-foot course, shoveling 15 shovelfuls of sand, placing ten weights in and out of stacked milk cartons and climbing a ladder. Karen and Koichi were great sports and powered through the task without complaint. Mike Gernhardt assured us all that our efforts would be integral to the success of the next spacesuit!
Drew and K2 took advantage of some timelined hookah dive time to find out which fish visit the Aquarius at night. There’s nothing like the view of the Aquarius at night when you’re on your own with a mask and regulator, looking back at this odd steel behemoth looming over you, lights skewed like a UFO. Tonight two sea turtles flew slowly through the lights, banking up towards the surface when they saw the strange black-suited diver with the light laser. The grates glow with blue florescent copepods, fish come out of nowhere, and Stella and Lucy take on a whole new aura as they float back and forth in front of the bedroom viewport. You’re back on the other side of the aquarium!
Mission Day 2 focused on testing the effect of ‘center of gravity’ (CG) locations for advanced exploration spacesuit designs. Today’s simulated exploration activities were targeted for a lunar gravity environment.
The tests consisted of conducting a number of activities in the different primary life support system (PLSS) CG configurations. The divers started with 35 pounds (30 pounds in the case of Karen Nyberg) on a shoulder-strapped weight belt, and then added the emergency ‘bail out bottle’ and the special PLSS testing rig. The first activity was four traverses of a 20-foot course, marked in the sand with yellow rope. The divers walked, ran, and jogged, and then repeated the trip one more time in their favorite ‘ambulatory mode.’ (Not crawling!) The second set of activities included kneeling and standing back up, falling on your face and getting up, picking up a rock, shoveling sand, and climbing a ladder that was secured to one of the habitat legs. After each of the activities, we had to rate how hard it was compared to doing it on land with no spacesuit in earth’s gravity or ‘1G.’ A NASA table called a “Cooper-Harper index” was used for this.
Drew and Koichi were the first divers in the morning. K2 conducted the intravehicular (IV) coordination, and Karen N. worked with the remotely-operated vehicle. The first challenge was with the diver communications, first with electronic feedback, and then with low volume in the ‘green diver’ helmet. We were able to fix those, although green diver (Koichi) had to keep his breathing quiet if he wanted to hear anyone. Drew got started with the tasks, and was soon joined by the topside crew, who adjusted the PLSS weights between runs. Pretty soon both divers were hard at work, with K2 playing maestro and directing one diver to the ‘track’ and the other to the ladder, and vice versa. Of the six different weight configurations, one was especially challenging for the divers, and drew a couple of ‘ughs!’ Although the two got out of the wet porch a little late with the communication fixes, they were able to catch up and finished right on time for lunch.
We had a lunchtime visitor, Phil Renaud. Phil is the executive director of the Living Oceans Foundation, a non-profit organization that sponsors coral reef research and education. His group is interested in conducting an education event in the Aquarius in the near future, so the timing of his visit was great to give him a taste of Aquarius life.
K2 and Karen shared a dehydrated beef stew lunch and leapt back into the wetsuits for the afternoon CG work. The current had picked up just enough to keep tension on the umbilicals and make maneuvering around the working area difficult. About half-way through the mission, the support divers found a solution by bungee-cording the umbilicals to a spare gazebo at the edge of the work area. The difference in the CG diving was notable. The K’s had been making the best of the umbilical situation, but when it was relieved, they were surprised at how much more they were able to concentrate on conducting the tasks and rating them properly. Everyone agreed that the CG exercises were physically challenging, and have a new appreciation for what the heavy Mars configuration will be like.
During the evening planning conference, the aquanauts and the topside crew discussed the day’s events and agreed on a few procedures to keep things smooth during the next CG events. Seemingly small things, like conducting the events in a consistent order, help keep everyone on the same page as the operation progresses.
While K2, Drew and Koichi entered data and conducted post-mission cleanup, Karen took advantage of the time to take a dusk hookah dive around the habitat. It was nice to have some time for nothing more than admiring the wildlife that calls Aquarius home.
Sunset brought the Japanese documentary crew out for some night filming, so Koichi donned the hookah mask and joined them outside. He took the opportunity to show off his mask-removal exercises and flash his pearly whites in front of the dinner window.