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USA Employees Help Make ‘Inner Space’ Mission a Success

Wearing a backpack device, NASA aquanaut Ron Garan conducts NEEMO 9 mission acitivities outside Aquarius.USA Employee and NEEMO Project Lead Bill Todd works on the specially designed “Scuttle,” the remotely operated vehicle, prior to mission “Spashdown.”The NEEMO 9 topside team in Florida included, front row from left, Kristen Painting and Dan Sedej of NASA and USA’s Monika Schultz. Back row, from left, USA’s Bill Todd, the NEEMO Project Lead, and Marc Reagan, NASA. Missing is USA’s Kimi Parker. They are pictured in front of “Scuttle”, the remotely operated vehicle used on the ocean floor during the mission.Sometimes you have to travel down to figure out how to go up.

That is why employees of United Space Alliance, working with NASA, are using an undersea habitat to test technology and processes that will be used in space.

The project, known as NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO), is led by USA’s Bill Todd and includes USA employees Kimi Parker and Monika Schultz.

The team just finished work on the ninth NEEMO mission, which ran from April 3 – 20. A crew of six, including three astronauts, a physician, and two technical support personnel, was isolated in the Aquarius undersea laboratory – the world’s only permanent underwater habitat and research laboratory – for 18 days. The mission goal was to test telemedicine and telerobotic techniques and to develop operations concepts for living and working on the lunar surface, including interaction with mission control, “moon-walking” techniques, man-machine interface operations using robotic devices and vehicles, and navigation and crew tracking devices for the lunar-based crew.

“This was the most technologically advanced undersea research mission that’s ever been accomplished,” Todd said. At 18 days, it was the longest Aquarius and NEEMO mission to date.

Aquarius is owned and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and operated by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. The lab is located in the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Key Largo, Florida.

Anchored 63 feet beneath the water’s surface, Aquarius measures 45 feet by 13 feet, similar in size to the U.S. Laboratory module on the International Space Station (ISS). The self-contained research habitat maintains ambient pressure, meaning the pressure inside the habitat is equal to the water around it, which is two and a half times the atmospheric pressure at the surface. This unique characteristic allows the aquanauts to move freely from the structure to the water without going through an entry lock. This pressure causes high levels of nitrogen to saturate the tissues of the body. The aquanauts cannot return to the surface without undergoing a 15-hour decompression. Failure to go through this decompression can lead to onset of the “bends” and potential illness or death. The fact that participants cannot readily leave the habitat makes this research situation unique.

“With the NEEMO experience, the danger is real, and the environment is truly extreme,” Todd said. “That’s why this is a true ‘inner space’ mission and not just a simulation that you can depart every day at 5 p.m. The isolation is absolute, and the consequences of your actions are critical. The Aquarius environment requires the aquanauts to use their training, skills, knowledge and teamwork to ensure their safety and mission success.”

While both Todd and Schultz have previously spent time on Aquarius, for Neemo 9, the USA employees were part of the topside crew in Florida, providing logistics assistance, daily operations planning, mission coordination and a variety of other support duties. The rest of the NEEMO group was located in the Johnson Space Center Exploration Planning Operations Center, where they assumed the role of mission control.

The support team communicated with the crew through lines that run through a life support buoy that is permanently anchored above Aquarius. The buoy also houses generators and compressors that provide electrical power and fresh air to the habitat.

This system allows Aquarius to have real-time voice communication and Internet connections. Todd explained that the goal of the NEEMO project is to parallel a space mission as closely as possible. Starting several months prior to each NEEMO mission, specialists at JSC put together a training and mission plan, just as they would for an ISS mission. The timelines look similar to an ISS timeline, and they use the same viewing tool that is used on the ISS. While in Aquarius, the crew receives a daily execute package, which spells out the daily work instructions, just as they do on the ISS.

Todd noted that when it comes to space operations, it is very difficult to practice here on Earth.

“The NEEMO missions are the closest we can come to really experiencing what it’s like to communicate with a long-distance, isolated crew,” he said. “It helps the astronauts understand what the space experience will be, and it helps those of us on the ground to understand the best way to do our part in working with the crew.

“In every possible aspect, this closely mimics space flight, including the potential for failures. We push our operations, technology and hardware to the limit, and when there are failures, it’s an opportunity to learn.”

Todd added that the recently completed NEEMO mission provided a wealth of information about the challenges of telemedicine and about conducting activities in a lunar environment.

The telemedicine and telerobotics operations involved the use of sophisticated equipment to perform telesurgery on a mannequin that contained simulated human organs. Delicate surgical operations, such as suturing wounds and removing a gall bladder through a laparoscope, were performed on the medical mannequin from thousands of miles away by a Canadian physician who was at the controls.

Using this same robotic equipment, the crew also practiced manipulating mock lunar samples by separating and cataloguing them, which is a task that mission operations is likely to include in a future lunar mission. The aquanauts also ventured outside Aquarius to conduct experiments intended to mimic lunar tasks, such as retrieving samples, operating a remotely operated vehicle and using navigation equipment – all while relaying information to Houston.

“The successful completion of these tasks proves that even with a two-second communication delay, long-distance surgery and robotic sample manipulation are viable,” Todd said. “This has implications here at home, as well as in space. It shows that remote access surgery can be used on Earth in isolated locations, such as polar sites, remote islands and on battlefields.”

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