NEEMO - NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations

During NEEMO missions, a crew of six “Aquanauts” lives aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aquarius Underwater Laboratory off Key Largo, Florida. The crew lives in saturation for a week to ten days and conducts a variety of undersea "moon walks" to test a suite of long-duration spaceflight medical objectives as well as concepts for future lunar exploration using advanced navigation and communication equipment in support of the Constellation Program planetary exploration analog studies. The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Directorate at NASA/Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, Texas supports this effort to produce a high-fidelity test-bed for studies of human planetary exploration models as well as to develop and test advanced curation techniques for human and robotic sample collection, documentation, and handling. To date, 13 NEEMO missions have been conducted utilizing crews comprised of a mix of four astronauts, scientists, and engineers with two NOAA operations specialists assigned to manage life support systems during the mission.

Aquarius is used by marine scientists to study coral reefs and NASA uses “coral science” as a proxy for “Lunar science” to train aquanauts to use their cognitive and analytical skills for data collection and documentation on the ocean floor in a manner similar to planetary surface operations.

Aquanauts remain isolated from the outside world for the duration of their mission because saturation diving techniques require a lengthy decompression before surfacing is allowed. The isolation, surrounded by an extreme environment, is important for studies related to behavior and physiology and as a space analogue for working and training under environmental conditions that are similar to many of the challenges faced in outer space. In particular, the NASA Aquarius experience is used to help build crew and mission control communication techniques, and will provide leadership and interpersonal skills training to everyone involved.