Today at 10:21 am Koichi Wakata, Karen Kohanowich, Karen Nyberg, and Drew Feustel joined an elite group of people in this world who have spent 24 hours under the sea in “saturation”, making them the world’s 4 newest aquanauts. Mark Hulsbeck and Dominic Landucci, of course, were already experienced aquanauts. Koichi, by virtue of having flown in space and lived under the sea, becomes the 13th “aquastronaut”!
NASA is in the early phases of designing the space suit for Lunar and Mars exploration. The Apollo moon walks demonstrated that the weight and center of gravity (c.g) of the space suit and portable life support system backpack were important parameters affecting astronaut performance. To investigate the acceptable c.g. limits for future designs, the NASA EVA Physiology, Systems and Performance Project (EPSP) working in conjunction with the Crew and Thermal Systems engineers have developed reconfigurable c.g back pack that can be worn by divers on “sea walks”. On Sunday the NEEMO divers weighed out at lunar gravity levels (1/6 g), donned the reconfigurable backpacks and performed a series of tasks representative of planetary exploration. These tasks, performed under six different center of gravity configurations included: timed walks, jogs and runs, kneeling, falling and recovering, picking up rocks, shoveling and climbing ladders. The divers evaluated each of the tasks using a modified Cooper-Harper rating scale. The timed ambulation tasks will be compared to a control group performing the same ambulations using a partial gravity weight relief system at the Johnston Space Center. This comparison will allow the data to be adjusted for the effects of water drag.
The advantages of performing these tasks on saturation excursion dives include a real operational environment, unlimited time duration and the ability to investigate the full six degree of freedom work volume. For safety reasons the ground based partial gravity simulators do not allow subjects to fall down. Later this week the divers will perform the same tasks under simulated Martian Gravity conditions. They will also wear the reconfigurable c.g backpacks while performing other mission tasks. The divers will perform half of the task with the c.g currently planned for the Lunar/Mars suit and the other half with the c.g configuration that had the best Cooper-Harper ratings. This data will be combined with c.g studies in other environments (partial gravity simulator and parabolic flight) to drive out the optimum configuration of the exploration suit portable life support system (backpack).
The Superlite 17 is a hard hat diving system, and is one of the most popular commercial diving systems in the world. For “surface” exploration tasks, it allows our aquanauts to be weighted to give a buoyancy effect like the gravity on the moon and Mars, and gives them a limited visibility helmet much like they might find in a space suit. For simplicity and safety reasons, it uses an umbilical instead of a closed-loop life support system. Note the helmet camera on top.
During these excursions, you can see and hear the live communications between our aquanaut team and the Mission Control team in Houston via streaming video at the NURC website. Scroll down to the “Diver Cam” section, and choose which diver you want to follow along with. It requires Quicktime to be installed, but will prompt you through the installation if your computer doesn’t already have it loaded.
- NEEMO 10 Topside Team
Greetings!
An intense training week for the 10th NEEMO mission has concluded successfully with our crewmembers graduating from “Aquanaut Candidate” status to being officially signed off to start the mission today, Saturday July 22. They successfully “splashed down” at 10:21 am to start their 7-day mission aboard Aquarius, the only operational undersea research habitat in the world. The Mission Commander is Koichi Wakata, a veteran JAXA (Japanese Aerospace eXploration Agency) astronaut, accompanied by NASA astronaut crewmates Karen Nyberg and Drew Feustel. Karen Kohanowich, Deputy Director of NOAA’s (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Undersea Research Program joins them. Mark Hulsbeck and Dominic Landucci, both professional aquanauts from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, round out the crew and will operate the Aquarius and oversee safety during the mission.
NEEMO 10 is sponsored by the Constellation Program at NASA. The Constellation Program is responsible for taking NASA back to the Moon and on to Mars. The primary objectives support investigating facets of operations critical to returning to the lunar surface, with some investigation of working on Mars as well. We will use undersea extravehicular activities imitating moonwalks to test concepts for mobility, using weighted backpacks to simulate lunar and Martian gravity. Techniques for communication, navigation and using remote-controlled robots on the moon’s surface also will be tested. The NEEMO Project Lead is Bill Todd, with a supporting cast of: Mission Director Marc Reagan, Monika Schultz, Dan Sedej, Kristen Painting, Alex Moore, Kimi Parker and Kristen Todd from JSC.
The crew had a very busy day today, which included 2 orientation dives, safety briefings on their new home, driving the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and getting all of their gear unpacked, set up, and stowed. Previous crews have compared the pace of the day to their first hours on space missions. These activities went smoothly – a testimony to the preparation the crew and support team put into this mission.
- NEEMO 10 Topside Team
NEEMO 10 is splashed down and underway! Saturday dawned sunny and calm after a rainy off-day, and we set off amidst fond farewells from topside support and camera crew. Our Japanese visitors wished us ‘fair winds’ with gifts of authentic Japanese antique fans, which came in handy in the hot, still canal air. The seas around the life support buoy were up to their old tricks though, and tossed us off into a slight current.
Our first team coordination test began before we reached the bottom – our team picture! We executed three highly choreographed maneuvers (thanks Maestro Bill!) as Bill and Marc snapped away to get a poster-quality shot. After they were satisfied, we ducked into the wet porch and officially began our week as aquanauts.
The first order of business for all Aquarius aquanauts is a full safety and familiarization tour. We learned the habitat’s important valves, switches (red shunt trip breaker) and procedures. One of the most important things that’s not immediately obvious is the humidity. Once you get wet, it’s impossible to dry off, so we use chamois squeegee towels instead of terry cloth, and make sure we’re dried off before we leave the wet porch and enter our living spaces. We then swallowed a quick lunch and got ready for an afternoon of familiarization dives and practice with the remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
A word about food – the main meals are dehydrated camping food, easy to make with hot water and share if you can’t eat a whole two-person serving. The bags of food are supplemented with tortillas, cheese, and chocolate; not necessarily in that order!
Karen Nyberg (i.e., “Bergy Bit”) and Karen Kohanowich (i.e., “K2″) were the first divers out for the familiarization dive. This mission is using new lightweight umbilicals which float rather than drag on the bottom, so a primary objective of the dive was to see how well the divers could manage walking around the coral areas with the umbilicals. Another tactic we’re using on this mission to assist with umbilical management is what’s called ‘fairleading,’ which means the umbilicals are led out of the habitat to a distant anchor – in this case a spare gazebo about 150 feet away- and then looped back to the Aquarius. Since the umbilicals are 400 feet long, we have enough umbilical to go back to the spare gazebo – called the ‘Koblick station’ and about 250 feet beyond.
The first team of Karens headed to the Koblick station and beyond to the Kamper station, a deeper gazebo about 150 feet further that is 90 feet deep. The umbilicals reached about 70-80 feet further than the Kamper station. During the first umbilical test Thursday, the topside team had realized that the lines were actually too light, and floated too near the surface of the water. They fixed this by attaching small lead strips along the umbilical at intervals. Today, after a bit more maneuvering, the divers realized that one of the umbilicals was a bit heavy, so they adjusted the weights. The floating umbilicals are definitely more maneuverable and reef-friendly than the older, heavier versions.
The conditions were calm and visibility was good for Karen and K2′s dive, but Koichi and Drew weren’t so lucky. By the time they suited up and got in the water a half hour after K’s dives, the current picked up to about a knot, which can be quite a challenge with 400 feet of umbilical. In addition, Koichi’s regulator began to free-flow, likely because of a bit of sand and debris. Nevertheless, he returned safely after a 45-minute dive, instead of the planned 90-minute dive.
While the divers were out, the remaining two crewmembers practiced with the ROV. A new addition to the “Scuttle” is a camera mounted on a tall pole, about 3 feet above the ROV. The idea was to see if the view helped the crewmember drive the vehicle. The team didn’t find the higher view that much more helpful, and unfortunately the ROV suffered a number of voltage faults that shortened the practice time. There’s more familiarization time scheduled tomorrow to keep working out the bugs!
The evenings are marvelous – when the outer light fades and the habitat lights come on, it invites all the fish to come take a look. A small turtle checked the team out as they finished off their dehydrated rice and tortilla dinner, and Lucy the Grouper paid a number of curiosity visits. In all a very successful first day and a promising launch to the week!
Billed as a day off, we ended up spending a good amount of time going over our timeline and choreography for the mission. In comparison to Space Shuttle flight training, which normally lasts a year after crew assignment, our two weeks of training was rather abbreviated. It was very challenging but was thorough and efficient. We were comfortable with our knowledge and skills but were glad to take the time to understand what each of our team members understands about our various roles and duties during the mission. Let’s dive!!
In the morning, we finished the list of our personal items to be transported to Aquarius such as clothing, personal digital assistants, and notebooks, and gave the NURC folks our first bag of items to be ‘potted down.’ The pots are actually pressurized painting pots that have been modified for Aquarius use.
Today was the real indoctrination into Aquarius diving, as we dove down to the wet porch, suited up in our diving helmets with the help of support divers, and did a brief familiarization dive in the helmet and fins. The team also conducted scuba check-out dives with the NURC staff to become qualified NURC divers. We were all thrilled with the helmets, and with diving around the habitat being able to talk with one another. Can’t wait to return and make longer dives!
That evening, we had more ROV briefings and learned how to make the data and control connections which will allow the flight controllers in the Exploration Planning Operations Center (ExPOC) in Houston to control the ROV in a true “remote control” scenario.