49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2018 (LPI Contrib. No. 2083) 1458.pdf THE ESA CAVES ASTRONAUT TRAINING PROGRAM: SPELEOLOGY AS AN ANALOGUE FOR SPACE MISSIONS Loredana Bessone1, Jo De Waele2 , Francesco Sauro2, 1Directorate of Human and Robotics Exploration, European Space Agency, Linder Höhe, 51147 Köln, Germany,
[email protected], 2Department of Biological, Geolog- ical and Environmental Sciences, Italian Institute of Speleology, Bologna University, Via Zamboni 67, 40126, Bo- logna, Italy,
[email protected],
[email protected] Introduction: Space agencies are concerned with hostilility of the environment, similarly to what is ex- training of their astronauts for long duration missions, perienced during Extravehicular Activities (EVA). not only for current and future orbital missions but also Behavioural issues for isolated, confined teams in for future human and robotic planetary surface explo- future planetary missions are one of the least known ration. Preparing for expeditions to other planets re- factors with a very high potential impact on the mis- quires a realistic replication of environmental and situ- sion success. From a psychological and psychosocial ational characteristics of the extreme conditions of point of view, much of the spaceflight stressors are space in earth analogue platforms, where stressors sim- present in cave exploration. When inside a cave, days ilar to those encountered in long duration spaceflight of progression far from the entrance, the isolation is are provided [1] . The environments in which such complete. Cave environments are obviously confined, training events are carried out must have realistic per- but mainly mobility is constrained, for safety reasons, ceived risk and must enable the execution of complex to specific paths along walls, like in EVA.