The 13th NEEMO mission and 90th mission for Aquarius ended today with “splashup” at ~ 8:45 am, concluding another safe and successful mission. The crew is healthy, our science and exploration objectives were completed, and we are another step closer to successfully returning people to explore the lunar surface.
Aquanauts ascending to the surface for “splashup”
Return to shore
A couple of days ago the NEEMO, ISS, and Shuttle crews were able to conduct a ship-to-ship video linkup. Former NEEMO 5 crewmember Clay Anderson is currently on the ISS, while on the Shuttle crew right now are two more NEEMO alumni: Commander Scott Kelly and Dr. Dave Williams. Going back to Expedition 13/Jeff Williams, we have what promises to be an unbroken string of NEEMO alumni on the ISS for as far out as crews are assigned, with NEEMO 5 alum Peggy Whitson up next, followed promptly by Dan Tani from NEEMO 2. We want to take this opportunity to thank our hosts here at the National Undersea Research Center. They have helped forge a solid partnership between NASA and NOAA to the benefit of both agencies. Their professionalism and commitment to safety is second to none. They take great care of the nation’s only undersea research facility, they keep a close eye on our crewmembers, and they take great care of our Topside team and visitors. So to the habitat technicians, Jim Buckley and Dewey Smith: a hearty “thank you” for teaching our crewmembers how to live as aquanauts. To Mark Hulsbeck and Ross Hein, thanks for the training you contributed prior to the mission. To Craig Cooper, thanks for managing this (and all) NEEMO mission so professionally. This is the only undersea research facility in the world because you guys ensure that it can be safe and operational every day of the year. And for the rest of the Aquarius staff who potted daily, manned the watchdesk 24/7, and did it all with a smile, we can’t thank you enough. Finally, special and sincere thanks to Tim Roberts for being our host and boat captain for the last 3 weeks. It wouldn’t have been possible without you all.We can’t properly thank everyone who had a hand in making this mission successful, but a few key entities should be noted:
- The Constellation Program at NASA for the funding, a crewmember, and the relevant lunar architecture objectives to start testing
- JSC’s Flight Crew Ops Directorate, for the funding, manpower, support, and part of the crew;
- JSC’s Space and Life Sciences Directorate, along with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) for contributing the life sciences objectives
- JSC’s Mission Ops Directorate, for the majority of the manpower that makes this both an environmental and a mission analog;
- The topside team, for the long hours of focused dedication and attention to detail;
- Dr. Mike Gernhardt, Kevin Rullman, Jennifer Jadwick, Nick Skytland and Mary Sue Bell for the preparatory work on so many of the exploration objectives we accomplished;
- Previous NEEMO crews who helped pave the way; and
- The families and friends of all of us who’ve been away so long making this mission a success. We appreciate your sacrifices!
Thanks for your support and following along!
Sayonara
- NEEMO 13 Topside Team out
“Decompression Day”
The last full day of a saturation dive – one in which you’ve absorbed too much nitrogen to return quickly to the surface – is a busy one, and ours was no exception. We started with some robotics work, using a small manipulator to handle coral samples much the same way we might handle rock samples on the moon.
Then we went to work preparing for splashup tomorrow. First we packed all our tools and possessions in giant steel pots for transfer to the surface. We were only allowed to keep what we absolutely needed for the last half day. At 16:00, we closed the habitat’s huge steel door, which has been open all mission. We started the 14-hour decompression with an hour of breathing pure oxygen from masks and then started slowly depressurizing the habitat (we simply opened a valve and connected ourselves to the atmosphere above the sea through a small tube). As I write this, Aquarius’ air pressure is equivalent to being 17 feet deep in sea water, and our bodies are slowly ‘blowing off’ excess nitrogen we built up living at a depth of 45 feet for nine days. Aquarius itself is still sitting in about 47 feet of sea water, so the pressure outside is currently one atmosphere greater than the pressure inside. That exerts over 20,000 pounds of force on our thick steel door!
By 6 a.m. tomorrow, we’ll be at surface pressure and will have lost enough of our excess nitrogen to safely swim to the surface without getting decompression sickness, or “the bends.” Of course, we’ll still be inside the habitat at the bottom of the ocean … So, we’ll quickly repressurize the habitat, open the door and swim to the surface using small scuba tanks, appropriately named “bail-out bottles.” Our repress and bailout will be the equivalent of a 15-minute scuba dive – one that ends with us aboard a boat and in the sunlight for the first time in 10 days! After that, we’re only a 40-minute ride from Key Largo and two days of post-dive observation.
We’ve had an amazing and educational mission, and we look forward to sharing it with all of you when we’re back on the surface.
- The crew of Aquarius
In the last report we showed you some work going on near the habitat to prepare for work at a remote worksite. Today we’ll follow the crew out to their worksites and see what they accomplished. Also, we’ll look at some of the life sciences experiments that we’ve done on this mission.
You may remember seeing the picture from yesterday of the beginning stages of building Lunasea. The exploration analog is that since the moon is such a smaller planetary body than the earth, you don’t have to go as far away to go “over the horizon.” But since the radio waves used for communications are line of sight, once you’re over the horizon, you’re unable to communicate back to the base. On the moon that distance is only a few miles. If we ever want to explore very far beyond our base, we’ll have to erect communication towers to extend the range. Lunasea is an analog communication tower. It requires assembly, transportation, and final construction at the new location. So what’s the best way to accomplish this? Build it all near the base and be stuck having to transport a large tower? Take all the pieces to a remote location out of radio contact and build it all there? NASA has to make decisions on these and thousands of other similar “ops concept” questions as we define our lunar architecture. For NEEMO 13, we built the tower in modules. Each module was built near the base, and then they were transported - via a powered “rover” with a trailer - to their ultimate destination, where final assembly was accomplished. In the pictures below you see the transportation of a module, the beginnings of construction, and the ultimate result. In the middle picture, note the small remotely operated vehicle on the left side of the picture which is allowing the control center to follow along.
Transporting a Lunasea module
Erecting the base
Lunasea erected at the outskirts of the Carpenter Basin
The other exploration activity they performed today was dubbed “lunar” coral. We mentioned that they earlier surveyed the neighborhood and noted the coordinates of interesting coral heads, much as a lunar explorer would note and mark interesting geological formations. We analyzed the data and pictures here on Topside, and sent them back to 4 specific sites in order to do much more detailed analyses. In the picture below you see Satoshi and Nick getting their sampling and analyses equipment out to go to work. The navigation device is stored on the cart in the foreground. No coral was harmed during this activity!
Satoshi and Nick analyzing “lunar” coral
Finally, we did some data takes with an ingeneous little Portable Unit for Metabolic Analysis - which of course we call PUMA. The goal of this study is to measure and monitor crew metabolic rate changes using a prototype PUMA developed by the NASA Glenn Research Center. Exploration-based EVAs will require three independent measurements of metabolic rate, but currently there is no adequate way to directly measure metabolic rate. Therefore, this will be a key evaluation of the PUMA calculations as well as providing the opportunity to assess hardware form, fit and function and give feedback in these areas. We did this before and after EVAs, which allowed the device to show the change in metabolism after the EVA. Below you see a PUMA run in progress. The head on the table is where it’s stored when not in use!
A data run of the Portable Unit for Metabolic Analysis
This mission is quickly winding down. Stay tuned for decompression day, coming up soon!
- NEEMO 13 Topside Team
NEEMO gets wheels!
Today was the second day of lunar spacewalks and our first day of lunar construction. We started the day by deploying a mock solar array module and quickly followed up with final assembly of the Luna Sea tower. As we have learned our way around the work area and gotten used to our gear, we have gotten much more efficient in terms of what we can accomplish in a day. We took a few minutes admiring our tower before disassembling it and carting it back to Aquarius. While we were taking pictures, someone else showed up to admire our work as well!
Barracuda greets Nick atop Luna Sea
Construction in extreme environments is something we have been doing on the International Space Station for more than seven years. NASA has also flown the space shuttle on nearly 120 missions spanning more than 20 years. So while we have considerable experience working in weightlessness, we have hardly any experience building things in lunar or Martian gravity. Our work here on Aquarius is helping NASA develop the tools, techniques and even the vehicles that will help us build the first human outposts on the moon and Mars.
Just like the final Apollo missions, NEEMO 13 has been fortunate not to have to walk everywhere. Today was the first day we used our rover, which really came in handy when it came time to move the three large modules of our tower out to the construction site. Building an outpost on the moon will likely require this “moving truck” capability, since each lunar lander that brings more supplies will not want to land too close to an existing outpost. Our rover with a trailer is one way to do this, and it was a very unique experience driving across the floor of the ocean! It’s likely that we had almost as much fun as the astronauts of Apollo. Satoshi will have to ask Dr. Jack Schmitt someday!
- Written by the Aquanaut Crew
Satoshi on the rover
The Exploration EVAs started in earnest on Saturday, Mission Day 6. Several of these tasks were done in close proximity to the habitat, as they configured their tools and evaluated their equipment.
One of the first tasks was another EVA Physiology, Systems and Performance (EPSP) Project study in support of tasks identified by the NASA Lunar Architecture Team (LAT-2) as likely lunar geological exploration tasks for future lunar missions. The tasks performed in a 1/6 gravity environment included soil, rake, and drive tube samples, and rock collection. Operations procedures from the Apollo missions were used and the crewmembers evaluated human factors and operational considerations of prototype geological tools and a sample carrying device. The crew also evaluated methods for single tool usage versus combining the tools into a single transportable package that could be deployed and utilized at a lunar worksite. Multiple types of data were collected for each task and will be compared to LAT-2 estimates and actual Apollo data. In addition, recommendations and feedback were given on the design of future lunar tools and sample carrying devices. In the picture below, look between Satoshi and Nick and you can see the tools attached to a gray board, which is attached to the structure (bell) in the background. Satoshi is recording data from one of his runs.
Satoshi and Nick on the “Apollo Tools” task
Another task they performed is called a “Solar Power Unit (SPU) deploy”. On the moon we expect to need a solar power collection device located away from the landing zone (so it doesn’t get blasted by sand and rocket exhaust) and perhaps even away from the habitat (for example, to improve the lighting.) But how would one actually take this SPU, deploy it remotely, and run the power back? The method we tried was to tow it behind the lunar rover on a trailer, with a simple reel mechanism to feed the power line out. In the pictures below you see Chris and Ricky laying out the power line while setting off to a distant location where the SPU will end up. This simple, manual reel mechanism has little possibility of failure or jamming.
Securing the cable and setting off
Top view of SPU deploy
One of the first things any newly arrived explorer would do upon arriving at their alien home would be to survey the local area. Here you see Nick conducting a field survey using an ingenious undersea navigation device. It allows him to mark the coordinates relative to the base of any features of interest or that may be worthy of closer examination. They did in fact mark multiple locations of “geological” interest (in this case, we used coral formations as a substitute for rock formations). After review by our team planetary scientist, Mary Sue Bell, a few sites were chosen which will be returned to later in order to conduct a more detailed in situ analysis. Satoshi is carrying a lightweight, portable cart which can hold the navigation device, light tools, cameras, etc. on their excursions.
Satoshi and Nick doing a field survey
Finally, a picture to give you a better appreciation for the beehive of activity that occurred on this excursion. In the background you see Aquarius, their home base, towering over the scene. At the far left is a remotely operated vehicle being driven by the Mission Control Team. It is mobile and provides excellent live camera views so that the control team has better situational awareness of on-going activities. Front left two aquanauts are assembling a tower, called Lunasea, which will be described in more detail in an upcoming report. Between them and Aquarius, another aquanaut is preparing the SPU for deploy. The bell, with the plexiglass bubble, has their tools mounted to it, and parts for the construction task sheltered below it. On the right, another aquanaut prepares the rover, which is about to be connected to the SPU trailer. As you can see, all 4 are busy working, and there’s a lot going on here… This is in keeping with our current thoughts at NASA that all 4 of our astronauts will do excursions together at the same time on the moon. … and in case you were wondering, these shots are not staged in any way. All of this activity is happening as planned per the timeline.
A busy day for NEEMO 13 at the Aquarius Reef Base
We’ll see you soon,
- NEEMO 13 Topside Team