NASA has picked four people to spend 45 days trapped in a capsule four times small than a tennis court to see if they could cope with a journey to Mars’ moon Phobos.
These experiments are designed to give agencies a better idea of how humans would interact and cope during a long space journey.
The volunteer research subjects start their virtual journey to Phobos on October 1, in a ground-based habitat at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
The mission is designed to serve as an analog for isolation, confinement, and remote conditions in exploration scenarios, with the group re-emerging on November 15.
Their home for the 45 days will be a small habitat called the Human Exploration Research Analog, or HERA – with collected data informing the design of future missions to the Red Planet, expected to happen in the 2030s.
HERA is a two-story, four-port cylindrical habitat unit with a total of 636 sq. ft of living space, designed to replicate the living space on a long duration spaceship.
The crew who will spend a month and a half together are (l-r): US Air Force researcher Dr Lauren Cornell, human systems engineer Monique Garcia, space station project engineer Christopher Roberts, and microbial ecologist Madelyne Willis
NASA has picked four people to spend 45 days trapped in a capsule four times small than a tennis court to see if they could cope with a journey to Mars’ moon Phobos
It provides a simulation of isolation, confinement and remote conditions astronauts will experience during exploration mission scenarios.
The crew come from a range of backgrounds and specialisms.
They are US Air Force researcher Dr Lauren Cornell, human systems engineer Monique Garcia, space station project engineer Christopher Roberts, and microbial ecologist Madelyne Willis.
HERA will house crew members who will simulate the long trek to Mars’ largest and innermost moon Phobos.
While not a target for a future crewed landing itself, the unusual scenario will have some similarities to future planned missions to the Red Planet.
Also, Phobos will be visited by a probe from the Japanese space agency JAXA in the coming decade.
JAXA plans to land on Phobos, collect samples of soil that could include ancient dust blown from Mars, and return them to the Earth.
Similar to other HERA missions, once the habitat’s doors close, the crew will need to stay inside for 45 days until the mission ends on November 15, 2021.
As the simulated journey takes crew members closer to Phobos, those inside will experience increasing delays in communicating with the outside world.
When the simulation successfully brings the crew to Phobos, this delay will last up to five minutes each way.
This is designed to simulate speed of light delays a real crew would suffer.
Such delays will force the crew — and those coordinating their journey — to practice communicating in ways that minimise impacts to mission operations.
NASA says this practice would also allow the crew sufficient autonomy to accomplish the mission without referring every decision to mission control.
HERA is a two-story, four-port cylindrical habitat unit with a total of 636 sq. ft of living space, designed to replicate the living space on a long duration spaceship
The upcoming mission signals the start of HERA’s Campaign 6, with three additional missions scheduled as part of this campaign, which ends on September 12, 2022.
NASA’s Human Research Program will perform 15 total studies throughout the missions, with seven returning and eight new investigations.
The data collected as part of these missions will continue to help prepare humans for Artemis exploration missions to our Moon, trips to the planned lunar Gateway in orbit around Earth’s Moon, and long-duration missions to Mars.
Four of the candidates will form the primary crew of HERA Campaign 6, Mission 1, with another two as backups if any of the main have to drop out.
Dr Lauren Cornell has studied the genetics of human evolution, investigated the use of carbon nanotubes for guided neuronal growth, and used magnetic nanoparticles to regenerate ocular tissue resulting from battlefield injuries.
This is an image from an earlier mission inside the spacecraft analog. The crew will have to learn to live together in a confined environment – with data feeding back to NASA
HERA will house crew members who will simulate the long trek to Mars’ largest and innermost moon Phobos
She conducted the latter research at the Sensory Trauma Department of the US Army’s Institute of Surgical Research.
Currently, Cornell is a researcher for the US Air Force, in San Antonio, Texas, contributing to the military branch’s mission to research, develop, and evaluate innovative technologies that impact the advancement of precision, regenerative, and diagnostic medicine for improving clinical outcomes for troops.
Monique Garcia works as a human factors engineer and systems administrator for The MITRE Corporation, tasked with developing a user interface for a telescope system that will be used in NASA’s Deep Space Network.
She also assists with developing task automation systems on satellites for the US Space Force and has 12 years of military service with the Air National Guard.
She aims to contribute and develop meaningful, long-duration human spaceflight research focused on human factors and behavioural performance for mission crews.
The only man of the main crew, Chris Roberts, works as a project engineer with NASA’s Cold Stowage team in support of the International Space Station program.
In this role, he is responsible for end-to-end integration and on-orbit operations for a fleet of hardware on both the space station and visiting vehicle missions.
Previously, he was a cargo operations flight controller for the space shuttle and for assembly missions to the space station.
Madelyne Willis is a microbial ecologist from Atlanta, Georgia. She has extensive field experience, including multiple deployments to the Arctic and Antarctic.
Willis is working on her PhD in Ecology and Environmental Science at Montana State University, and her primary research is focused on polar ecology, understanding how microorganisms survive in frozen environments, and how microbial activity may alter the geochemistry of glacier ice.
The backup crew are Justin Lawrence, a planetary science PhD candidate and Pu Wang, an engineering team manager for Boeing.