The first five editions of CAVES (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016) took place in several caves on the Italian island of Sardinia, part of a Karst System which lies within the Supramonte region. The rocks in this area are predominantly limestone and dolomite.^[2][5]

The 2019 edition of CAVES was carried out in the so-called “Classical Karst” area, a karst region between Italy and Slovenia, world famous for its limestone caves. Here, the course makes use of facilities provided by Skočjanske Caves Regional Park, with field activities occurring in several caves along the underground course of the river Timavo, both in Italy^[6] and Slovenia.^[2]

The CAVES training has the following training objectives for its participants:

• Working together effectively in a challenging environment;
• Adapting to a lack of comfort and privacy;
• Exploring the cave;
• Conducting scientific and technological research;
• Managing logistical problems and coping with limited resources;
• Facing the psychological effects of the mission;^[7][8]
• Handling critical situations;
• Being aware of safety requirements at all times;
• Training the participants in leadership skills.^[2][5]

The cave environment is an exceptional space analogue. It recreates on Earth many of the stressful conditions and specific characteristics encountered in long duration spaceflight, such as:

• Unknown / unfamiliar environment – The crew's knowledge about the cave is limited to what previous expeditions have found and documented.
• Permanent darkness / need for artificial illumination.
• Lack of time references – A direct consequence of the cave's permanent darkness.
• Alteration of circadian rhythm and sleep disturbance – The lack of time references and limited facilities affect sleep quality and cycles length.
• Sensory alteration / deprivation – Not only are caves lightless, they also provide almost no auditory or olfactory stimuli.
• Limited privacy – Small, confined spaces do not offer much room for privacy or personal space for team members.
• Social and cultural aspects / crew size – The team includes astronauts from ESA, NASA, ROSCOSMOS, CSA, JAXA and CNSA, so the team dynamics that emerge during the mission are similar to those expected on an international cooperative space mission.
• Limited resources / hygiene – The logistics inside the cave is extremely complex, only limited supplies can be carried inside.
• Isolation / Limited communication with outside world – Communications with the outside world are limited to interactions with the mission support team over delay to enhance the sense of isolation.

• High level of autonomy – The crew must operate with few inputs from outside whilst exploring.
• Real physical danger – Even implementing all reasonable safety measures, caves still present risks to human explorers, including falling, slipping, rock falls, or becoming trapped by landslides or floodings. Participants must be constantly aware of these risks.
• Limited mission abort / rescue capabilities – Given the complexity of the environment, both evacuation and rescue operations require several hours or even days to plan and execute.

Another parallel with space exploration concerns astronaut progression within the cave, i.e., how they move through the environment. Speleological techniques involve safety principles similar to that of an EVA, such as the need to be attached to a safe surface – the cave wall in CAVES, the ISS or a vehicle in space. The crew mission performed during the final expedition also has several elements in common with astronaut's experience during ISS operations, including a time-lined activities schedule, daily planning calls to the ground support team, and standardised procedures and data collection methods.^[2]

In the same way astronauts in space spend a considerable part of their time doing science, “cavenauts” must perform a real crew mission involving several different experiments and activities while exploring the cave. After team training, conducting scientific and technological research is the secondary objectives of the CAVES course. The third objective is to further explore and document previously unknown areas of the cave.^[2]

Mission programme edit

Geology (analysis of water's chemical and physical properties, counting of drip rate)

Environment (measurement of air temperature / relative humidity / wind / air pressure / CO₂ concentration / radon concentration)

Microbiology (sampling of micro-organisms in soil and on surfaces for later cultivation)

Biology (counting and sampling of cave terrestrial and aquatic fauna, search for micro-crustaceans, search for fauna in the soil)

Technology testing (underground communication devices, physiology sensors)

Cave documentation (photos and 3D survey of the cave, photogrammetry modeling of relevant speleothems)

Results edit

One of the most remarkable scientific results is the discovery of a previously unknown species of crustaceans of the genus Alpioniscus living in the cave.^[6]

All other results are available on the ESA Erasmus Experiment Archive, divided by year:

• EEA CAVES 2011
• EEA CAVES 2012
• EEA CAVES 2013
• EEA CAVES 2014
• EEA CAVES 2016

Different roles and responsibilities are assigned to the participants for the mission, according to their background, experience and interests.

Possible roles, in line with the mission programme, include: mission commander, camp site manager, scientist, data engineer, photo engineer and survey engineer.

All participants are astronauts – either veteran or rookies – unless otherwise mentioned.

CAVES 2011 edit

• Randolph Bresnik – NASA
• Sergey Ryzhikov – Roscosmos
• Norishige Kanai – JAXA
• Tim Peake – ESA
• Thomas Pesquet – ESA^[9][10]

CAVES 2012 edit

• Michael Fincke – NASA
• Andrew Feustel – NASA
• Nikolai Tikhonov – Roscosmos
• Soichi Noguchi – JAXA
• David Saint-Jacques – CSA
• Andreas Mogensen – ESA^[11][12]

CAVES 2013 edit

• Jeremy Hansen – CSA
• Mike Barratt – NASA
• Jack Fischer – NASA
• Aleksei Ovchinin – Roscosmos
• Satoshi Furukawa – JAXA
• Paolo Nespoli – ESA^[3]

CAVES 2014 edit

• Scott Tingle – NASA
• Alexander Mirsurkin – Roscosmos
• Sergey Kud-Sverchkov – Roscosmos
• Luca Parmitano – ESA
• Matthias Maurer – ESA (Eurocom at the time, Astronaut since 2015)^[13][14]

CAVES 2016 edit

• Jessica Meir – NASA Mission Commander
• Ricky Arnold – NASA Campsite Manager
• Sergei Korsakov – Roscosmos Scientist
• Aki Hoshide – JAXA Data Engineer
• Ye Guangfu – CNSA Photo Engineer
• Pedro Duque – ESA^{[1][15][16][17]} Survey Engineer

CAVES 2019 edit

• Joe Acaba - NASA
• Jeanette Epps - NASA
• Joshua Kutryk - CSA
• Alexander Gerst - ESA
• Takuya Onishi - JAXA
• Nikolay Chub - Roscosmos^[18]

• Astronaut training
• Extreme environments
• Neemo
• Space exploration
• Terrestrial space analogues

• What is CAVES?
• CAVES at Flickr
• ESA CAVES and Pangaea - YouTube
• CAVES at Twitter