CAVES 2016: The dark face

A look back at the CAVES 2016 expedition which saw six astronauts from China, Japan, USA, Spain and Russia spend six nights in caves of Sardinia, Italy, to explore the depths and train for life in outer space.

CAVES – Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills – focuses on multicultural approaches to leadership, following orders, teamwork and decision-making. At the end of the course the astronauts will have a better understanding of how they function in a multicultural team and what they are skilled at, as well as areas for self-improvement.

This year’s astronauts were each assigned a role for the underground expedition: Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide shared commander and campsite duties with NASA’s Ricky Arnold, exchanging command halfway through the mission. China’s Ye Guangfu was the team’s survey and data engineer, while Russian Sergei Korsakov took up photo and video engineering duties. ESA astronaut Pedro Duque was the expedition’s scientist for environmental science, geology and microbiology, while NASA’s Jessica Meir was the biologist.

Follow CAVES Twitter via @ESA_CAVES, and on the CAVES blog: http://blogs.esa.int/caves.

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