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Piyumi Wijesekara who’s a Postdoctoral analysis scientist within the Radiation Biophysics Laboratory at NASA Ames Analysis Centre in California’s Silicon Valley |
Sri Lanka’s Piyumi Wijesekera is amongst NASA’s four-member new volunteer crew chosen to take part in a simulated mission to Mars inside a habitat on the company’s Johnson House Centre in Houston.
Others are Jason Lee, Stephanie Navarro, Shareef Al Romaithi. They’ll step into the company’s Human Exploration Analysis Analog, or HERA, on Friday, 10 Could. As soon as inside, the workforce will dwell and work like astronauts for 45 days. The crew will exit the ability on 24 June after they “return” to Earth. Jose Baca and Brandon Kent are this mission’s alternate crew members. HERA allows scientists to review how crew members adapt to isolation, confinement, and distant circumstances earlier than NASA sends astronauts on deep house missions to the Moon, Mars, and past.
Crew members will perform scientific analysis and operational duties all through their simulated mission to the Purple Planet, together with a “stroll” on Mars’s floor utilizing digital actuality. They will even expertise rising communication delays lasting as much as 5 minutes every manner with Mission Management Centre as they “close to” Mars.
This crew is the second group of volunteers to take part in a simulated Mars mission in HERA this 12 months. The newest crew accomplished its HERA mission on 18 March. Two different missions will observe this 12 months, with the ultimate HERA crew slated to wrap up on 20 Dec.
Piyumi Wijesekara is a postdoctoral analysis scientist within the Radiation Biophysics Laboratory at NASA Ames Analysis Centre in California’s Silicon Valley. Her analysis focuses on growing tissue fashions to research the consequences of spaceflight stressors, together with ionising radiation and lunar mud on the human respiratory system.
Wijesekara earned her bachelor’s diploma in bioengineering from the College of California, San Diego, and her grasp’s and doctorate levels in biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon College in Pittsburgh, Penn. Her doctoral analysis centered on stem cell and organ engineering, with an emphasis on engineering lung fashions that mimic human lung physiology, to review respiratory ailments.
Wijesekara at present lives in San Francisco. She enjoys spending time with household and pals, operating alongside the San Francisco Bay, studying, mountain climbing, volunteering on the meals pantry, and attending live shows and musicals.
In a primary for HERA, one crew member, Shareef Al Romaithi, hails from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and can take part within the mission via a partnership between NASA and the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Rashid House Centre (MBRSC).
As with the earlier HERA mission this 12 months, NASA’s Human Analysis Program is conducting 18 human well being research through the mission. The experiments will consider the physiological, behavioural, and psychological responses of crew members in an setting just like what astronauts will face on a visit to Mars. Seven of those research are collaborations with the MBRSC and the European House Company (ESA). Insights gleaned from the research will permit researchers to develop and check methods geared toward serving to astronauts overcome obstacles on lengthy missions deep into house.
