Desert RATS

Geologist Jose Hurtado takes a spacewalk in front of one of the Space Exploration Vehicles on day six of Desert RATS 2011. Photo courtesy of NASA/Regan Geeseman.

By Scott Tingle- NASA Astronaut and DRATs crew member - Booyah from Desert Rats!   We finished week 1 of the test and are enthusiastically moving into the final stages.   Crew A completed countless test events and not only survived, but thrived living in the Deep Space Habitat for 4 days and 3 nights straight.   They optimized work space usage, streamlined processes and experienced much camaraderie.   Today (Monday), Crew A begins a series of EVA test events that will help the community flush out performance characteristics of several operational configurations designed to optimize exploration of deep space locations.

HDU (Habitat Development Unit) at NASA Desert RATS base camp in August 2011 ready for operations. Larger Image. On top of the HDU is the X-Hab Challenge Inflatable Loft.

By Douglas Craig: Humanity's dream of exploring the wonders of space--to look for life on other planets and to better understand our place in the universe--has not diminished over the years. But advances in human space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit have been slow to emerge.

This year's education and public outreach activities by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education at NASA Desert RATS were supported by a generous grant from the Coalition for Space Exploration.

Keith's note: Monday's NASA Edge/Challenger Center live webcast from Desert RATS will be at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nelivedrats2010. The ATHLETE rover arrived back at base camp on Sunday afternoon. The first of the two SEV rovers is expected to arrive Monday morning - possibly in time for this webcast.