Away Teams & Field Reports

Away Team Training: ESA CAVES 2025 Underground Campsite At Abel Cave

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
ESA
June 17, 2026
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Away Team Training: ESA CAVES 2025 Underground Campsite At Abel Cave
Credits: ESA / V.Crobu Larger Image

A view of the kitchen area at the Abel Cave campsite, where the ESA CAVES 2025 course crew and support team are staying.

ESA CAVES (Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills) is an ESA astronaut training program.

The 2025 iteration placed a multicultural crew of four astronauts in the remote Sardinian caves in Italy for an isolated, 4-day underground expedition to simulate the isolation, confinement, and critical decision-making of spaceflight

Astrobiology,

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻