NASA is preparing for another moon arrival, and it wants to guarantee that the following lunar spacewalk is as sheltered as conceivable with a model gadget concentrated on sparing brought down space explorers.
To test it out, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are going to the remote oceans.
With its common likenesses to the outside of the moon, the sea floor is the ideal condition to reenact a lunar situation. This is the reason the space organizations are going to submerged territory Aquarius in the Atlantic Ocean to run their tests.
The ESA has a model gadget called the Lunar Evacuation System Assembly (LESA) that enables a solitary space traveler to send the structure and lift their debilitated crewmate into a versatile stretcher before carrying them to a pressurized lander.
The whole procedure of conveying and verifying their crewmate to the stretcher should take under 10 minutes
The Extravehicular Activities (EVA) suits that space travelers wear are cumbersome, overwhelming, and don’t take into consideration a full scope of development.
“There is no way an astronaut could carry their fallen crewmate over their shoulder while wearing an EVA suit,” says Hervé Stevenin, ESA’s head of spacewalk preparing and Neutral Buoyancy Facility activities. “Our objective was to bring all the rescue actions into the working range of the EVA-suited astronaut to ensure a rapid and safe rescue.
“LESA can be transported like a golf caddy and placed close to the fallen astronaut to provide a lifting mechanism and a stretcher that is easy to maneuver. Once the rescuer has used the device to lift their crewmate and attach the stretcher to their back, they add wheels to the stretcher and transport them to safety.”
A prior model of the gadget was tried by ESA space traveler Pedro Duque and NASA space explorer Kjell Lindgren in 2017 during NASA mission NEEMO 22.
Individuals from the NEEMO 23 group alongside two different space travelers – ESA space explorer Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA space traveler Jessica Watkins – will put the following rendition of LESA to the test at Aquarius more than nine days beginning this week.
Christoforetti and Watkins will wear EVA gloves, which are pressurized and limit ability, and test LESA out in an EVA space suit test system.
“ESA has been participating in NASA’s NEEMO missions for the past eight years,” says Stevenin. “With our common spotlight on sending space travelers to investigate the lunar surface by as right on time as 2024, joint testing through this very NEEMO 23 mission makes ready for potential NASA-ESA participation.”
