NEEMO


NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, is a NASA analog mission that sends groups of astronauts, engineers and scientists to live in the Aquarius underwater laboratory, the world's only undersea research station, for up to three weeks at a time in preparation for future space exploration.
Aquarius is an underwater habitat off Key Largo, Florida, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is deployed on the ocean floor next to deep coral reefs below the surface.
NASA has used it since 2001 for a series of space exploration simulation missions, usually lasting 7 to 14 days, with space research mainly conducted by international astronauts. The mission had cost about 500 million U.S. dollars. The crew members are called aquanauts, and they perform EVAs in the underwater environment. A technique known as saturation diving allows the aquanauts to live and work underwater for days or weeks at a time. After twenty four hours underwater at any depth, the human body becomes saturated with dissolved gas. With saturation diving, divers can accurately predict exactly how much time they need to decompress before returning to the surface. This information limits the risk of decompression sickness. By living in the Aquarius habitat and working at the same depth on the ocean floor, NEEMO crews are able to remain underwater for the duration of their mission.
For NASA, the Aquarius habitat and its surroundings provide a convincing analog for space exploration.
Much like space, the undersea world is a hostile, alien place for humans to live. NEEMO crew members experience some of the same challenges there that they would on a distant asteroid, planet or Moon. During NEEMO missions, the aquanauts are able to simulate living on a spacecraft and test spacewalk techniques for future space missions. Working in space and underwater environments requires extensive planning and sophisticated equipment. The underwater condition has the additional benefit of allowing NASA to "weight" the aquanauts to simulate different gravity environments.
Until 2012, Aquarius was owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and operated by the National Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington as a marine biology study base.
Since 2013, Aquarius is owned by Florida International University. As part of the FIU Marine Education and Research Initiative, the Medina Aquarius Program is dedicated to the study and preservation of marine ecosystems worldwide and is enhancing the scope and impact of FIU on research, educational outreach, technology development, and professional training. At the heart of the program is the Aquarius Reef Base.

Missions

NEEMO 1: October 21–27, 2001

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Thor Dunmire
  • Ryan Snow

    NEEMO 3: July 15–21, 2002

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Byron Croker
  • Michael Smith

    NEEMO 4: September 23–27, 2002

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • James Talacek
  • Ryan Snow

    NEEMO 6: July 12–21, 2004

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Craig B. Cooper
  • Joseph March,
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 7: October 11–21, 2004

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • James Talacek
  • Billy Cooksey
  • Bill Todd, Mission Director

    NEEMO 8: April 20–22, 2005

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
  • Michael L. Gernhardt, Commander
  • John D. Olivas
  • Scott Kelly
  • Monika Schultz
NURC Support Crew:
  • Craig B. Cooper
  • Joseph March
  • Bill Todd, Mission Director

    NEEMO 9: April 3–20, 2006

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
  • Dafydd Williams, Commander
  • Nicole P. Stott
  • Ronald J. Garan Jr.
  • Timothy J. Broderick, M.D.
NURC Support Crew:
  • James F. Buckley
  • Ross Hein
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 10: July 22–28, 2006

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Dominic Landucci
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 11: September 16–22, 2006

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Larry Ward
  • Roger Garcia
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 12: May 7–18, 2007

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
NURC Support Crew:
  • Dominic Landucci
  • James Talacek
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 13: August 6–15, 2007

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
  • Nicholas Patrick, Commander
  • Richard R. Arnold
  • Satoshi Furukawa
  • Christopher E. Gerty
NURC Support Crew:
  • James F. Buckley
  • Dewey Smith
  • Marc Reagan, Mission Director

    NEEMO 14: May 10–23, 2010

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • James Talacek
  • Nate Bender
  • Bill Todd, Mission Director

    NEEMO 15: October 20–26, 2011

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • James Talacek
  • Nate Bender
DeepWorker 2000 submersible crew:
  • Stanley G. Love
  • Richard R. Arnold
  • Michael L. Gernhardt

    NEEMO 16: June 11–22, 2012

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
DeepWorker 2000 submersible crew:
  • Stanley G. Love
  • Steve Giddings
  • Serena M. Auñón
  • Bill Todd
  • Michael L. Gernhardt
  • Andrew Abercromby
  • Steve Chappell

    SEATEST II: September 9–13, 2013

Space Environment Analog for Testing EVA Systems and Training
Designation skipped
NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Otto Rutten

    NEEMO 18: July 21–29, 2014

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Professional habitat technicians, Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • James Talacek
  • Hank Stark

    NEEMO 19: September 7–13, 2014

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Ryan LaPete

    NEEMO 20: July 20 – August 2, 2015

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Professional habitat technicians, Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Sean Moore
NEEMO 20 mission objective was to simulate the time delays associated with sending and receiving commands between controllers on Earth and astronauts on Mars. Additional EVAs will simulate working on the surface of an asteroid, and the use of the DeepWorker submersible as an underwater stand-in for the Multi-Mission Space Exploration Vehicle.

NEEMO 21: July 21 – August 5, 2016

The NEEMO 21 mission was scheduled to begin July 18, 2016 and conclude August 3, 2016; however, the mission start was shifted to July 21, 2016 as a result of unfavorable weather conditions.
NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Professional habitat technicians, Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Hank Stark
  • Sean Moore

    NEEMO 22: June 18–27, 2017

NASA Aquanaut Crew:
Professional habitat technicians, Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Sean Moore

    NEEMO 23: June 10–22, 2019

NASA all-female Aquanaut Crew:
Professional habitat technicians, Aquarius Reef Base support crew:
  • Mark Hulsbeck
  • Tom Horn