Florida hurricane cuts short underwater mission of Canadian astronaut

An approaching hurricane has forced Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques to cut short his mission in an underwater facility off the coast of Florida.

A Canadian Space Agency official says Saint-Jacques and his five fellow crewmates had to leave “Aquarius” — their subaquatic facility — overnight and return to the surface because Hurricane Rina was coming.

Saint-Jacques Tweeted
that the crew was sad to leave early, but felt that a lot of objectives were accomplished.

The Canadian astronaut adds that the overnight decompression went fine.

The 13-day NEEMO mission was supposed to last until Nov. 1.

Click here to watch video of the NEEMO facility.

The underwater facility is located 5.6 kilometres off Key Largo in the Florida Keys, 19 meters below the surface.

NASA’s NEEMO Twitter feed reported that crew was safe and sound on dry land.

The objectives of the mission were to simulate spacewalks, while tackling challenges like how to anchor to the surface of an asteroid and how to move around and collect data.

The international space community has been focusing on a trip to an asteroid — something U.S. President Barack Obama has said he would like to see happen by 2025.

The NEEMO-15 mission was originally scheduled to begin Oct. 17, but its start was delayed by several days because of bad weather.

NEEMO stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations.

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