ESA CAVES

CAVES, an acronym for Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills, is a European Space Agency astronaut training course in which international astronauts train in a space-analogue cave environment. Designed at the European Astronaut Center, the course aims to prepare astronauts for safe and efficient long duration spaceflight operations by means of a realistic scientific and exploration mission within a multicultural, ISS-representative team.
Each training course lasts for approximately three weeks. The first two weeks focus on providing the astronauts with the necessary behavioural patterns, scientific knowledge, and technical skills to work effectively and safely in an underground environment. During this time, trainees visit simple caves to become acquainted with the conditions they will find themselves in during their final expedition, a six-day uninterrupted expedition exploring a complex cave system. The main purpose of the mission is to foster their communication, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership and team dynamics capabilities by means of team activities and a real crew mission performed in a space-like environment.
Location.
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.
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 and Slovenia.
Objectives.
The CAVES training has the following training objectives for its participants:
A space analogue.
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:
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.
Crew mission.
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. 
Mission programme.
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.
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.
All other results are available on the ESA Erasmus Experiment Archive, divided by year:
Participants.
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.