Editor’s Word, Oct. 29, 2024: The crew roster for this HERA mission has been up to date.
A crew of 4 analysis volunteers will quickly take part in NASA’s final simulated mission to Mars in 2024 inside a habitat on the company’s Johnson Area Heart in Houston.
Obaid Alsuwaidi, Kristen Magas, Tiffany Snyder, and Robert Wilson will step into the 650-square-foot HERA (Human Exploration Research Analog) facility on Friday, Nov. 1. As soon as inside, the staff will stay and work like astronauts for 45 days. The crew will exit the power on Monday, Dec. 16, after simulating their return to Earth. Jordan Hundley will function an alternate crew member. Anderson Wilder was a part of the unique main crew however has been changed by alternate crew member Wilson.
Scientists use HERA research to look at how crew members adapt to isolation, confinement, and distant circumstances earlier than NASA sends astronauts on deep area missions to the Moon, Mars, and past. The research present information about human well being and efficiency in an enclosed setting over time with crews dealing with completely different challenges and duties.
The 4 volunteers will perform scientific analysis and operational duties all through their simulated mission, together with elevating shrimp, rising greens, and “strolling” on the floor of Mars utilizing digital actuality. They may even expertise communication delays lasting as much as 5 minutes as they “close to” Mars, permitting researchers to see how crews could reply to the kind of delays astronauts will encounter in deep area. Astronauts touring to the Purple Planet could encounter one-way communication delays lasting so long as 20 minutes.
As with the earlier HERA missions, crew members will conduct 18 human well being research through the mission by way of NASA’s Human Research Program. Collectively, the work helps scientists perceive how a spaceflight-like setting contributes to the physiological, behavioral, and psychological well being of crew members. Insights gleaned from the research will enable researchers to develop and check methods aimed toward serving to astronauts overcome obstacles on deep area missions.
Obaid Alsuwaidi
Obaid Alsuwaidi serves as captain engineer for the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Ministry of Protection. On this function, he supplies steerage in civil and marine engineering and addresses challenges dealing with the group. Beforehand, Alsuwaidi labored as a challenge supervisor for the protection ministry, serving to to streamline productiveness, set up excessive requirements of professionalism, and construct a staff of consultants to serve the UAE’s wants.
Alsuwaidi earned a bachelor’s diploma in Engineering from Western Sydney College in Australia, adopted by a grasp’s diploma in Civil and Environmental Engineering from George Washington College in Washington.
In his free time, Alsuwaidi enjoys horseback using, swimming, and working.
Kristen Magas
Kristen Magas is an educator and engineer, at present instructing at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical Excessive Faculty in Franklin, Massachusetts. She additionally mentors college students concerned in a NASA design and prototyping program, serving to them develop and fabricate merchandise to enhance life in area on each Worldwide Area Station and Artemis missions. Magas was a finalist for the 2025 Massachusetts State Instructor of the Yr.
Magas obtained bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Cornell College in Ithaca, New York. She additionally holds a grasp’s diploma in Vocational Schooling from Westfield State College in Massachusetts. She has labored as a group faculty professor in addition to a design engineer in municipal water and wastewater therapy.
In her spare time, Magas enjoys teaching robotics and monitor and subject, mountain climbing, biking, and staying related along with her group. She has two youngsters and resides in North Attleboro, Massachusetts along with her husband of 25 years.
Tiffany Snyder
Tiffany Snyder is a supervisor for the Cybersecurity Mission Integration Workplace at NASA, serving to to make sure company missions are shielded towards cybersecurity threats. She has greater than 20 years of data know-how and cybersecurity expertise, working with the Air Nationwide Guard and as a particular agent with the Protection Counterintelligence Safety Company. She joined NASA in 2018 as an IT specialist, and later served because the deputy chief info safety officer at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida, offering cybersecurity oversight.
Snyder holds a bachelor’s diploma in Earth Science from the State College of New York at Buffalo and a grasp’s diploma in Digital Forensics from the College of Central Florida in Orlando.
In her spare time, she enjoys enjoying along with her canines — Artemis and Apollo, gardening, working, and visiting the seaside along with her household.
Robert Wilson
Robert Wilson is a senior researcher and challenge supervisor on the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. He leads work enhancing human-machine collaborations, creating human prediction fashions, and integrating that know-how into digital actuality and robotic techniques designed to function in remoted, constrained, and excessive environments. His human-machine teaming experience additionally extends into accountable synthetic intelligence growth. He just lately participated in a United Nations Roundtable dialogue about synthetic intelligence in safety and protection.
Wilson obtained his bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue College in 2013 and 2015, respectively. He earned his doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Colorado Boulder in 2020.
Outdoors of labor, Wilson is an avid outside fanatic. He enjoys scuba diving, winter tenting, backcountry snowboarding, and mountain climbing by way of the woods or mountains all year long. At residence, he additionally likes to tinker in laptop networking and self-hosted techniques.
Jordan Hundley
Jordan Hundley is a senior guide at knowledgeable providers agency, providing federal companies technical and programmatic help. Previous to his present place, he centered on U.S. Division of Protection shoppers, performing model-based system engineering and serving as a topic skilled for associated operations.
Hundley was commissioned into the U.S. Air Drive by way of the Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps program on the College of Central Florida in Orlando. Whereas on lively obligation, he served as an intercontinental ballistic missile operations officer. He later joined the U.S. Air Drive Reserve. At present, he’s an area operations officer with expertise in area battle administration and electromagnetic warfare.
Hundley earned a grasp’s diploma in Engineering Administration from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College in Daytona Seaside, Florida. He’s at present pursuing a second grasp’s diploma in Techniques Engineering on the college.
Hundley holds a personal pilot license and is a licensed rescue diver. In his spare time, he enjoys mountain climbing and tenting, researching theology, and studying musical devices.
Anderson Wilder
Anderson Wilder is a Florida Institute of Know-how graduate scholar engaged on his doctorate in Psychology. His analysis focuses on staff resiliency and human-machine interactions. He additionally works within the campus’s neuroscience lab, investigating how spaceflight contributes to neurobehavioral adjustments in astronauts.
Wilder beforehand served as an govt officer and engineer for an analog mission on the Mars Desert Analysis Station in Utah. There, he carried out research associated to crew social dynamics, plant progress, and geology.
Wilder obtained his bachelor’s levels in Linguistics and in Psychology from Ohio State College in Columbus. He additionally holds grasp’s levels in Area Research from Worldwide Area College in Strasbourg, France, and in Aviation Human Components from the Florida Institute of Know-how. He’s finishing one other grasp’s diploma in Cognitive Experimental Psychology at Cleveland State College in Ohio.
Outdoors of faculty, Wilder works as a parabolic flight coach, instructing folks how one can fly in decreased gravity environments. He additionally enjoys chess, studying, video video games, skydiving, and scuba diving. On a current dive, he explored a submerged part of the Nice Wall of China.
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NASA’s Human Research Program pursues the perfect strategies and applied sciences to help protected, productive human area journey. By way of science carried out in laboratories, ground-based analogs, industrial missions, and the Worldwide Area Station, this system scrutinizes how spaceflight impacts human our bodies and behaviors. Such analysis continues to drive NASA’s mission to innovate ways in which preserve astronauts wholesome and mission-ready as human area exploration expands to the Moon, Mars, and past.
For extra details about human analysis at NASA, go to:
