The
Summer 2021
Project PoSSU News
IIAS becomes the World’s First Institutional Sponsor of a Commercial, Human-Tended Research Spaceflight
PoSSUM’s Dr. Sian Proctor headed to Space with Inspiration4 PoSSUM partners with Scuba Diving Agency NAUI for Commercial Space Suit Testing
PoSSUM Returns to Flight! Our PoSSUM Family is eager for an explosive 2021 with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences! While distance education has been the norm for 2020, PoSSUM will kick off our ‘Return to Flight’ as our EVA 103 students will study planetary field geology in the same tradition and in the same location as NASA’s astronaut candidates. Then, our first class of flight test engineeing will be in Colorado followed by microgravity research campaigns, spacecraft egress training and operational research campaigns. We will also be releasing several bold new programs including three new flight test engineering courses, our NAUI Fundamentals of Underwater EVA course, Space Robotics, and Orbital Mechanics and Mission Simulation! Join the Family today!
PoSSUM’s Host Institution Sponsors the World’s First Industry-Sponsored, Human-Tended Research Spaceflight on a Commercial Vehicle BOULDER, Colo. (June 3 2021): The International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) has announced a contract to fly IIAS researcher Kellie Gerardi to space on a dedicated research mission with Virgin Galactic. The contract marks the world’s first industry-sponsored, human-tended research spaceflight on a commercial vehicle, and IIAS researcher Kellie Gerardi is the first female payload specialist contracted to fly on a commercial spacecraft. Since 2015, IIAS has established research and education programs that use a variety of space-analog environments. The research spaceflight will advance the scientific knowledge gained from a number of Kellie’s previous reduced gravity flight campaigns performed here on Earth, including with the National Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The IIAS experiments to be flown in space include the Astroskin Bio-Monitor wearable sensors system, developed by Canadian company Carré Technologies Inc. (Hexoskin) with the support of the CSA, as well as a free-floating fluid configuration experiment. The IIAS and Virgin Galactic teams will collaborate closely with academic and government partners to carefully plan Kellie’s spaceflight activities to maximize the science and technology advancements
IIAS Founder Dr. Jason Reimuller said, “We’re excited to leverage the unique benefits of Virgin Galactic’s Spaceflight System for human-tended research. This has been a long-time goal of our institute and IIAS is proud to be the first research institute to produce a commercial astronaut. Throughout her years working with our institute, Kellie has demonstrated the expertise needed to produce novel research in dynamic operational environments. We’re looking forward to enabling the next generation of scientist-astronauts to conduct their research in space.” Kellie Gerardi said, “I’m enormously proud of my work with IIAS and I’m grateful to Dr. Reimuller and the team for the continued investment in me. I’m also excited by the precedent we’re setting with this human-tended research flight. I’m honored to take this first step on behalf of our community, and I’m looking forward to supporting the many talented researchers who will certainly follow.”
PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Candidate to Orbit as Part of Inspiration4 Crew Dr. Sian Proctor, Scientist-Astronaut Class 1902, was selected today to be part of the #Inspiration4 crew, making her the first PoSSUM graduate to be selected for an orbital space flight. She will be one of four crew members that will comprise the 'first civilian (non-governmental) mission to space' aboard #SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. Inspiration4 was founded by billionaire Jared Isaacman as a privately chartered space flight, scheduled to launch in late 2021. It is being billed as the first crewed space mission with no professional astronauts on board. Inspiration4 will raise awareness and funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to begin "a new era for human spaceflight and exploration. The multi-day orbital flight was named to commemorate the four-person crew and their associated "pillars" of support for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity. Sian, a geology and planetary science professor and science communication specialist, was awarded her seat as winner of the Shift4Shop competition.
International Institute for Astronautical Sciences Announces Partnership with Project PoSSUM Boulder, CO. – The International Institute of Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) formally announced a partnership with the Project Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) today. This partnership designates IIAS as the provider of formal educational services supporting PoSSUM’s research activities. Currently representing students from 43 different countries, IIAS is an education and research institute combining distance learning with immersive field campaigns that produce scientific research in fields that benefit from and enable human space flight. Project PoSSUM is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and education organization that conducts upper-atmospheric and bioastronatuics research and manages related science outreach projects. Offering professional certificates and a thesis-based program, IIAS will continue to focus on the following concentrations: aeronomy, bioastronautics, space suit test and evaluation, science education, and space flight operations. IIAS research facilities are collocated at IIAS research facilities are collocated at the National Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Space Agency, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Survival Systems USA, and a field research site in Northern Arizona. “IIAS exemplifies what a leading-edge educational institute should be: research-focused, international, and a combination of virtual learning with immersive field campaigns”, said IIAS Executive Director Dr. Jason Reimuller. “Our students lead novel, applied, and occasionally deployed research, and are encouraged to serve the communities from which they come.”
PoSSUM Members study Flight Test Engineering An initial class of 14 PoSSUM members have enrolled in the IIAS inaugural program leading to a professional certificate in Flight Test Engineering. The new program was designed to offer a high-value certification for students interested in the profession of a test pilot or as a flight test engineer. Assembled in collaboration with the National Research Council of Canada’s Flight Research Laboratory, the IIAS Flight Test Engineering program combines expert instruction with a variety of diverse yet economical aircraft that have been modified to provide the student real-time data of flying qualities including data from an Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS), pitot-static information, G-loading, and ambient atmosphere information, engine qualities including RPM, Manifold pressure, and cylinder pressures and temperatures. Aircraft are further configured for demonstrations of control surface deflection, control force, flow visualization leading to and into stall, and spin recovery qualities.
IIAS maintains four aircraft in support of the Flight Test Engineering program: A Turbo Mooney M20K and a twin-engine Cessna 310 for performance and stability and control testing, an Extra 300L for stall and spin test demonstrations, and a Marchetti S211 for demonstrating high-performance procedures in a turbineengine, swept wing aircraft.
PoSSUM Partners with NAUI Commercial Space Suit Testing
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The International Institute for Astronautical Sciences, PoSSUM’s host institution, has finalized a partnership with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) to designate NAUI as its SCUBA certification partner. The partnership establishes the IIAS Post-Landing Egress Laboratory and Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL), jointly developed between IIAS and Survival Systems USA (SSUSA) in Groton, CT as a Certified NAUI research facility. Since 2016, PoSSUM has evaluated space suit technologies developed by Final Frontier Design (FFD) of Brooklyn, NY in a variety of analog environments through its citizen-science non-profit, Project PoSSUM. Post-landing Intra-Vehicular Activity (IVA) space suit evaluations have been held at SSUSA using a full-scale fiberglass mockup of NASA’s Orion spacecraft and a parachute-drop apparatus to simulate various ejection and parachute entry training procedures into water. Last October, FFD’s Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) space suit was first evaluated by IIAS in lunar and simulated zero-G conditions using its gravity-offset laboratory at the Canadian Space Agency in Montreal, Quebec. The next phase of these EVA space suit evaluations is scheduled for April 2021 and will be in underwater analog conditions at SSUSA.
Initially, four IIAS courses developed by former NASA human space flight engineers will be validated by NAUI: Spacecraft Egress and Rescue Operations, Post-landing Space Suit Evaluation, Fundamentals of Underwater EVA Operations, and Underwater EVA Space Suit Evaluation. The NBL facility will simulate the Quest airlock on the International Space Station and provide an underwater laboratory to test and evaluate EVA space suit technologies and procedures. The initial group of NAUI-Certified IIAS SCUBA Instructors responsible for the facility will include Stephen Daire, Matt Harasymczuk, Chris Lundeen, Dr. Jason Reimuller, and Dr. Erik Seedhouse.
PoSSUM to Conduct Post-Landing Egress and Contingency Medical Evaluations using Space Suits this October Twelve PoSSUM members will participate in the 2021 post-landing space suit evaluation program at Survival Systems USA in Groton, CT. starting on 9 October 2021. These tests will continue on the 2019 campaign where PoSSUM pressurized, suited test subjects will focus on multiple test objectives: 1) In-capsule or in-water medical contingency operations, 2) Managing an incapacitated crew member in post-landing, 3) Administration of post-landing CPR techniques on a victim in a space suit, 4) Evaluation of oxygen mask use in parachute drop scenarios in the IVA space suit, 5) Evaluation of one-raft versus personal raft designs (weight/egress effectiveness/risk trade), 6) Evaluation of upgraded Life Preserver unit stability and flotation.
The Out Astronaut Project Selects Brian Murphy as Winner of the 2021 Out Astronaut Contest Brian Murphy was selected today as the winner of the 2021 Out Astronaut Contest, a competition hosted by the Out Astronaut Project. The Out Astronaut Project increases the visible representation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ (LGBTQ+) identified persons in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Out Astronaut is sponsored through the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences (IIAS) and Project PoSSUM, a research and education institute specializing in aeronomy, bioastronautics, operational science, flight test engineering, and science education. Murphy, a gay, non-binary astronomy student, will attend the Phase I Fundamentals of Astronautics course, Advanced PoSSUM Academy, this September hosted at Florida Tech in Melbourne, FL. The intent of the program is to train and fly an openly LGBTQ+ person as a spaceflight researcher. Of the 561 individuals that have been selected as astronauts or cosmonauts, none have ever identified openly as a member of the LGBTQ+ community during their tenure as an active astronaut.
2021 Out Astronaut Phase One Contest Winner Brian Murphy
“Just three years ago, I was closeted and cut off from the world of LGBTQ+ outreach and activism. Now, I have been selected as the 2021 Out Astronaut, and get to work with the inspiring Out Astronaut team, and their partners to see a more visible and inclusive future become reality”, said Murphy, “I am so thankful for all of the support I have received, and I look forward to chasing the dreams of LGBTQ+ acceptance in STEM and human spaceflight for years to come.” The LGBTQ+ community is notably under-represented in STEM professions. According to a recent poll conducted by ‘Pride in STEM’, more than 40 percent of LGBTQ+ people in STEM are not out and LGBTQ+ students are less likely to follow an academic career. The Out Astronaut Project highlights the contributions of LGBTQ+ members currently working in science and space. “Regrettably, many LGBTQ+ people interested in STEM fear that they will be seen as a liability” explains Out Astronaut Project Executive Director, Dr. Jason Reimuller, “Out Astronaut fosters equity and inclusion in STEM fields by enabling members of the LGBTQ+ community to serve as role models and demonstrate that there are no limits to a career in science.”
Applications now being accepted for PoSSUM Class 2101 Twelve new candidates will be selected for PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Class 2101, which will take place at Florida Tech in Melbourne, Florida from 24-29 September 2021. The Advanced PoSSUM Academy will be held from 20-24 September 2021. Interested individuals should apply online at www.projectpossum.org no later than 1 July 2021.
Summer 2021 Open University Opportunities! Want to get started with us this Summer? We have TWO OPEN UNIVERSITY courses for Summer Semester 2021: EDU 101 (Citizen-Science Research Methods) and EVA 103 (Planetary Field Geology and EVA Tool Development). EVA 103 provides the student with a foundational understanding of the requirements, methods, and limitations of conducting geologic field work during EVAs on planetary surfaces such as the Moon and Mars. The course covers the requirements and design considerations for EVA systems and tools for conducting planetary field geology. Included are an introduction to field science in the context of geology; an overview of the processes that shape the surface environments of Mars and Earth’s moon; a survey of historical planetary surface geologic exploration by robots and humans; and a survey of historical EVA systems and tools used for human surface science. Emphasis will be on analyzing the constraints placed by human factors, the EVA environment, science tasks, etc. upon the design and implementation of EVA suits, tools, and procedures for effective and efficient field science operations on planetary surfaces. EVA 103 will include a 4-day field campaign in Flagstaff, AZ where you will learn in the same location and from the same instructor that trains NASA’s Astronaut Candidates! EDU 101 (Citizen-Science Research Methods) provides students a foundation on which to participate in or conduct their own research, complimentary to the education activities of IIAS and the research activities of PoSSUM and OTTER. Upon completing this course, graduates will be able to 1) describe existing citizen science work supported by space agencies, 2) design and propose citizen science research projects, 3) demonstrate the requirements for human subject research, 4) communicate the current gaps in knowledge within bioastronautics, EVA, spacecraft technologies, and aeronomy research, and 5) develop and present their own citizen science research project proposal with objectives, procedures, budget, and data collection and analysis strategy. Registration is open to 20 June 2021!: astronauticsinstitute.org
PoSSUM Scientist-Astronaut Candidate Rui Moura demonstrates techniques of lunar seismology used to identify concenPoSSUM Scientist-Astroanut Candidate Shayla trations of rock in the lunar regolith. Redmond demonstrates her novel lunar shovel design at the San Francisco Volcanic Fields near Flagstaff, Ariz.
Graduate Course Schedule Released for Fall 2021 Semester Fall 2021 will be a busy time for the PoSSUM team as we Return to Flight! Two citizen-science programs (BIO 103 and BIO 104) will be held. 2020 will also welcome the inaugural EVA 105 course on EVA operations. Courses designated as 101 courses are available to all and you do not need to be a PoSSUM scientist-astronaut candidate or PoSSUM Academy graduate to register for one of these classes.
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