[meteorite-list] NASA Announces 16th Undersea Exploration Mission Dates and Crew

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:16:18 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201204162216.q3GMGI0T007672_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

April 16, 2012

Michael Braukus
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1979
michael.j.braukus at nasa.gov

Brandi Dean
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
brandi.k.dean at nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-116

NASA ANNOUNCES 16TH UNDERSEA EXPLORATION MISSION DATES AND CREW

WASHINGTON -- An international team of aquanauts will travel again to
the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to simulate a visit to an asteroid
in the 16th expedition of NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations
(NEEMO).

This year's NEEMO mission will begin June 11. It will build on lessons
learned from 2011's NEEMO 15 mission and test innovative solutions to
engineering challenges allowing astronauts to eventually explore
asteroids.

"We're trying to look out into the future and understand how we'd
operate on an asteroid," said Mike Gernhardt, NASA astronaut and
NEEMO principal investigator. "You don't want to make a bunch of
guesses about what you'll need and then get to the asteroid to find
out it won't work the way you thought it would. NEEMO helps give us
the information we need to make informed decisions now."

This NEEMO expedition will focus on three areas: communication delays,
restraint and translation techniques, and optimum crew size. The crew
of four will spend 12 days living 63 feet below the Atlantic Ocean's
surface on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Aquarius Reef Base undersea research habitat off the coast of Key
Largo, Fla.

NASA astronaut and former space shuttle crew member Dottie M.
Metcalf-Lindenburger will lead the crew. She will be joined by fellow
astronauts Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and
Timothy Peake of the European Space Agency and Cornell University
professor Steven Squyres, who was also a NEEMO 15 crew member.

To request interviews with the NEEMO 16 crew during the mission,
contact Brandi Dean of NASA at brandi.k.dean at nasa.gov, Rosita Suenson
of the European Space Agency at Rosita.Suenson at esa.int, Akiko Niizeki
of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency at niizeki.akiko at jaxa.jp or
Fred Gorell of NOAA at fred.gorell at noaa.gov.

The NEEMO mission is sponsored by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems
Program. For more information about NEEMO and the crew and links to
follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/neemo

For more information about NASA analog field tests, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/analogs
        
-end-
Received on Mon 16 Apr 2012 06:16:18 PM PDT