Taking part in NASA’s NEEMO 21 underwater training mission, Matthias Maurer, from the European Astronaut Centre, tests a new version of ESA’s wearable ‘mobile procedure viewer’ prototype, ‘mobiPV’, that gives astronauts access to hands-free instructions with audio and video that only they hear and see.
During their stay in a permanent underwater base off the coast of Florida, the NEEMO 21 crew are enacting a mission to Mars to test equipment for astronauts. The six ‘aquanauts’ will spend 16 days 20 m underwater in their habitat and perform ‘waterwalks’ – by adjusting their buoyancy, the aquanauts can simulate Mars gravity.
mobiPV will be used by the aquanauts to help take and analyse water samples throughout the mission to test AquaPad, an ESA-led investigation to filter water cheaply and easily using a new type of biomimetic membrane that copies nature.
Read more: Return to the underwater space station