Astronauts are training for a human mission to an asteroid by developing new procedures underwater for use in space.
Steve Bowen and Stan Love are two astronauts developing the techniques and testing the equipment that will be needed for the mission.
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston is normally used to train astronauts in low-gravity conditions. This pool is 40 feet deep, large enough for life-sized mockups of satellites to be used in training. For Love and Bowen, NASA employs models of both the Orion spacecraft and the spacecraft that will be used to capture an asteroid.
"We're working on the techniques and tools we might use someday to explore a small asteroid that was captured from an orbit around the sun and brought back by a robotic spacecraft to orbit around the moon. When it's there, we can send people there to take samples and take a look at it up close," Love said.
Astronauts experimented with new equipment that could be used on a human mission to an asteroid. One of these is a type of pneumatic hammer, which will be used to extract a core sample from the rocky body. Mission planners hope to drill a core from the asteroid, and examine the chemical makeup of layers. This could help answer questions about the formation of our solar system.
Astronauts on the mission may be best-served by wearing a different spacesuit than the one normally worn for takeoffs and re-entries. However, mission planners wanted to avoid adding more weight to the craft with an additional suit. Therefore, the astronauts are testing how the Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES) could be used for the mission, in addition to its role in emergency procedures. The suit has been adapted with new gloves, boots and bearings designed to aid mobility of the astronauts.
NASA is examining asteroids to determine a target for this first-of-its-kind mission. After an asteroid is chosen, a robotic spacecraft will launch toward the rocky body. The asteroid will be captured, and brought into a stable orbit around the moon. Astronauts will then fly to the body, and conduct an extensive survey of the object, including gathering a core sample. This will then be returned to Earth for analysis.
The Orion spacecraft planned for use on the upcoming mission will be part of the Space Launch System, designed to replace the space shuttle program, which was retired in 2011.
Video showing some of the testing was made available by NASA.
