NEEMO 15 Underwater Expedition Begins

The 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO15) expedition should have begun this Monday, October 17, but bad weather off Key Largo, Florida, prevented the six aquanauts from descending under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

The purpose of this expedition is to simulate the conditions astronauts would meet when exploring a near-Earth asteroid. This is done s 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface of the ocean, in the Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, Space reports.

Astronauts and scientists descended to the lab at 2:15 pm EDT (1815 GMT) on Thursday, October 20, marking the beginning of NEEMO15. The new mission is expected to provide the American space agency with the data it needs to make informed decisions about future space missions.