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N Newby

Publications and source records attributed to N Newby.

12 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2024

3D Scanning System to Assess Gravity-Dependent Body Shape Changes

The human body shows unique physiological and morphological changes when exposed to different gravity conditions, including muscle atrophy, fluid shift, spinal elongation, and body posture adjustments. Such changes need to be incorporated for human-system integration in the vehicle habitat, garment, and spacesuit designs, as inaccurate body measurements can result in suboptimal crew protection that can potentially decrease injury tolerance. However, the traditional linear measurements, such as stature, segment lengths or circumferences measured using a caliper or tape measure, often show limited consistency and are unable to capture the nonlinear characteristics of the human body. While 3D body scanning can provide significant advantages over linear measurements, the technologies have not been fully developed or customized for in-flight scanning. For ground laboratory use, several different scanner types are commercially available. However, in-flight scanning requires additional technical considerations, such as minimal scan time, simplified calibration, and sufficient capture volume. This work aims to develop a prototype 3-D body scanning system that is customized for in-flight use to scan crewmembers, with the configuration and performance optimized for detecting known gravity-dependent body shape and posture changes. A hardware system will be custom built using a network of commercial off-the-shelf 3D sensors. The sensor parameters and settings will be optimized to detect the targeted body shape changes, specifically using body manikins of which the shape and size are iteratively permuted to simulate the known changes by fluid shift and spinal elongation. The capture volume will be also matched for a range of body sizes from a 1st percentile female to 99th percentile male. Unintentional body motions or floating in microgravity will be also simulated and incorporated. A data acquisition software will be developed for efficient in-flight operations with minimal overhead and easy-to-use user interface. A simplified calibration procedure will be designed for robust scanning against frequent vibration or unexpected sensor position shifts. The system will be tested in the ground laboratory for accuracy and reliability against a reference scanning system. New anthropometry measurements will be also identified to sensitively capture the gravity dependent body shape changes, in addition to the traditional anthropometry measurements. A novel landmark-based technique will be tested for consistent anthropometry measurements across posture variations. If successfully developed and deployed, the new system is expected to provide previously unavailable body shape and size data from different gravitational environments, including 0-g, 1/6-g, and 1-g. Such data can improve suit fit, habitat design, exercise efficacy quantification and sizing of orthostatic intolerance garments.

K H Kim↗
NASA NTRS2023

Extravehicular Activity on the Lunar Surface: Mapping Mitigation Risk Consequence for Crew Needing Assistance or Rescue

The lunar environment offers unique challenges for human health and safety over the course of performing Extravehicular Activities (EVAs) during early Artemis missions. Driver medical conditions leading to an injured EVA crewmember needing assistance or rescue were analyzed and correlated to established, defined consequence categories. Catastrophic Drivers were identified, and three mitigation strategies were analyzed to determine if there was a potential change in consequence with their application. Risk consequence across the mitigations were compared with each other and the original risk without mitigations. Mitigations were further evaluated in a broader context with prospective preventions to understand the design and risk trade space associated with an early Artemis EVA.

Risk↗
NASA NTRS2022

Apollo Crew Loads Data Mining

INTRODUCTION Human exposure data to dynamic loads in spaceflight are sparse not only because very few crewmembers have flown in space, but also because much of the historic data is no longer readily available. Earth and Moon landings of the Apollo missions are unique and valuable for understanding human tolerance in water landing conditions for both short-duration and long-duration crewmembers as well as informing crew tolerance in standing postures during planetary landings. The goal of this task was to find relevant Apollo data to better understand human tolerance in these scenarios, in order to apply this knowledge to future missions. METHODS The goal of this task was to recover time history data from dynamic phases of flight from crewed Apollo missions. The first phase of the task was to search available records at JSC and other centers to locate the appropriate records at the National Archives in Fort Worth, TX. Once the possible data locations were located, it was planned that one researcher would travel to the National Archives in Fort Worth, TX to collect the relevant Apollo data. Once the data was retrieved, they would be digitized for future use and evaluation, and archived within the Human Physiology, Performance, Protection, and Operations (H-3PO) laboratory within the Human Health and Performance Directorate. These data would be used to assess the feasibility and acceptability of current standards and vehicle design requirements for lunar and Mars missions. Additionally, any medical monitoring required, or physiological changes noted in crewmembers based on dynamic loads would be documented for future use. RESULTS Relevant records were found at Ft. Worth, TX and College Park, MD using the National Archives Online Catalog. In addition to the online catalog, an Archives staff member was able to share an additional inventory list of NASA JSC records held in Ft. Worth, TX. Due to COVID-19, NASA has only recently allowed non-mission essential travel. In addition, the National Archives has also been closed to the public since March 2020. Because of this, travel to the National Archives to search records there has not been possible. CONCLUSION The findings include collections at the National Archives at both Ft. Worth, TX and College Park, MD that could possibly hold the data we are looking for. Unfortunately, the descriptions of each collection are very broad. Though we are hopeful that relevant data is stored in one of these collections, we cannot be sure that we will find what we are looking for. At this time, it is not clear when the Archives will reopen to the public or when NASA will allow travel. Travel to the Archives has been postponed, and will be reassessed at a future date.

T Reiber↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Soyuz Landing Risk Characterization

INTRODUCTION United States On-orbit Segment (USOS) astronauts have been returning to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle since 2003. The energetics associated with Soyuz landings are comparable to our next generation of US space vehicles (Orion, Crew Dragon, and Starliner). Soyuz also lands crew in a similar state of spaceflight deconditioning that is anticipated using the future vehicles. A number of injuries have now been observed during these Soyuz landings. Currently it is unknown how Soyuz landing accelerations and the numbers and types of associated injuries relate to the new occupant protection requirements levied upon future space vehicles. Understanding this relationship will allow better quantification of the risk of injury for future spacecraft designs. METHODS An estimate of the occurrences of injury during Soyuz landings has been determined using data contained in NASA flight medicine databases and supplemented with data collected from crewmembers and flight surgeons. At the time of this abstract, 96 USOS astronauts have returned to Earth in the Soyuz (59 US, 31 International Partner, and 6 spaceflight participants). Of that total, data from 80 individual crew landings has been collected through this study. Injuries are classified as either contusions/abrasions, Class I (minor, no medical follow-up), Class II (moderate, medical follow-up necessary), Class III (severe), and Class IV (life threatening). Current NASA occupant protection standards are primarily based on the Multi-axial Dynamic Response Index (MDRI), which is a simple lumped-parameter spring, mass, damper model tuned to human impact responses in three orthogonal axes. RESULTS Using what is known about Soyuz landing dynamics from airborne and drop test data, the MDRI predicts essentially no Class IV or III injuries, < 1% Class II injuries, and < 5% Class I injuries. Approximately one-third of all USOS crewmembers for whom data has been gathered have suffered some sort of injury related to landing in the Soyuz vehicle. Most of these injuries fall into the contusion/abrasion category (21.3 %). Class I injuries have been sustained by 5.0% of all crew, and Class II injuries have been observed in 3.8%. No Class III or IV injuries have been sustained to date. Forty-three injuries have been documented, with some crewmembers sustaining more than one injury in a single landing. The knee was the most likely area of injury (n=9), followed by the back (n=8), and then the arm (n=7). CONCLUSION Soyuz landing dynamics are the most comparable analog environment for the anticipated loads associated with Orion and commercial crew vehicle landings. The MDRI under predicts the percentage of Class II injuries experienced during Soyuz landings. The MDRI is better at predicting Class I injury occurrences. However, if contusions/abrasions are included in the minor injury Class I category, then the MDRI also vastly under predicts those injuries as well. Given this data, it will be important to re-evaluate the expected injury rates for future vehicles, and work toward improving the predictive tools for spaceflight use. Spaceflight deconditioning may account for some of the under prediction, and work is ongoing to assess the relationship between landing injuries and impact tolerance changes due to spaceflight deconditioning.

N Newby↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lunar Transport Vehicle Ocupant Protection Requirements

INTRODUCTION The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is preparing for future Artemis missions that will return humans to the lunar surface. A critical piece of these future missions is the Lunar Transport Vehicle (LTV), a transportation device to be used on the lunar surface. A vehicular method of transportation will allow for longer duration missions with increased capabilities to conduct research and transport soil, geological samples, or other materials of interest. The objective of this project is to provide occupant protection guidance for the design of the LTV. METHODS At the time of writing of occupant protection requirements, much of the LTV design is unknown. However, several general assumptions have been established. It is assumed that the LTV will be an unpressurized crewed rover with the occupant(s) wearing an EVA suit. Additionally, the occupant must be protected using established health limits as governing criteria to protect the occupant from hazardous levels of acceleration, jerk, and vibration. In addition to the health limits, it is expected that the LTV shall provide a comfortable transportation solution to Lunar operations. Several restraint configurations have been considered to allow for seated and standing operation of the vehicle. RESULTS Preliminary recommendations and metrics were put forward by a cross functional working group with members from Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center. Exposure to acceleration, vibration, and jerk metrics above the proposed limits could create a risk of occupant injury. In addition to satisfying crew health needs, these limits permit the occupant to meet performance objectives including operating the vehicle and reading displays while traversing the Lunar surface. Initial guidance was refined during a Technical Interchange Meeting with external subject matter experts in industry, academia, and United States Air Force. CONCLUSION Operating a crewed vehicle in a lunar environment is a novel problem with few analogs to provide data. Based on terrestrial data from ISO & MIL Standards, occupant protection recommendations have been identified with several assumptions made about reduced gravity and deconditioned occupants. If the design of the vehicle attenuates energetics to levels below those put forward, there is high confidence the occupant will be able to repetitively operate the vehicle without physical harm or operational issues.

K Dolick↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Soyuz Landing Risk Characterization

INTRODUCTION United States On-orbit Segment (USOS) astronauts have been returning to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle since 2003. The energetics associated with Soyuz landings are comparable to our next generation of US space vehicles (Orion, Crew Dragon, and Starliner). Soyuz also lands crew in a similar state of spaceflight deconditioning that is anticipated using the future vehicles. A number of injuries have now been observed during these Soyuz landings. Currently it is unknown how Soyuz landing accelerations and the numbers and types of associated injuries relate to the new occupant protection requirements levied upon future space vehicles. Understanding this relationship will allow better quantification of the risk of injury for future spacecraft designs. METHODS An estimate of injury occurrence during Soyuz landings has been determined using data contained in NASA flight medicine databases and supplemented with data collected from crewmembers and flight surgeons. At the time of this abstract, 96 USOS astronauts have returned to Earth in the Soyuz (59 US, 31 International Partner, and 6 spaceflight participants). Of that total, data from 80 individual crew landings has been collected through this study as of 2021. Injuries are classified either as contusions/abrasions, Class I (minor, no medical follow-up), Class II (moderate, medical follow-up necessary), Class III (severe), or Class IV (life threatening). Current NASA occupant protection standards are primarily based on the Multi-axial Dynamic Response Index (MDRI), which is a simple lumped-parameter spring, mass, damper model tuned to human impact responses in three orthogonal axes. RESULTS Using what is known about Soyuz landing dynamics from airborne and drop test data, the MDRI predicts essentially no Class IV or III injuries, < 1% Class II injuries, and < 5% Class I injuries. Approximately one-third of all USOS crewmembers for whom data has been gathered have suffered some sort of injury related to landing in the Soyuz vehicle. Most of these injuries fall into the contusion/abrasion category (21.3 %) (n.b. This is the percent for whom contusion/abrasion was the worst injury. Those with class I or II injuries typically also received contusions/abrasions). Class I injuries have been sustained by 5.0% of all crew, and Class II injuries have been observed in 3.8%. No Class III or IV injuries have been sustained to date. Forty-three injuries have been documented, with some crewmembers sustaining more than one injury in a single landing. The knee was the most likely area of injury (n=9), followed by the back (n=8), then the arm (n=7). CONCLUSION Soyuz landing dynamics are the most comparable analog environment for the anticipated loads associated with Orion and commercial crew vehicle landings. The MDRI under predicts the percentage of Class II injuries experienced during Soyuz landings, but it is better at predicting Class I injury occurrences. However, if contusions/abrasions are included in the minor injury Class I category, then the MDRI vastly under predicts those injuries as well. Given this data, it is important to re-evaluate the expected injury rates for future vehicles and work toward improving the predictive tools for spaceflight use. Spaceflight deconditioning may account for some of the under prediction, and work is ongoing to assess the relationship between landing injuries and impact tolerance changes due to spaceflight deconditioning. Future work includes expanding this study to involve private space missions on new vehicles to better characterize the effects of time in flight, suit and seat design, and vehicle dynamics.

N Newby↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Soyuz Landing Risk Characterization

INTRODUCTION United States On-orbit Segment (USOS) astronauts have been returning to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle since 2003. The energetics associated with Soyuz landings are comparable to our next generation of US space vehicles (Orion, Crew Dragon, and Starliner). Soyuz also lands crew in a similar state of spaceflight deconditioning that is anticipated using the future vehicles. A number of injuries have now been observed during these Soyuz landings. Currently it is unknown how Soyuz landing accelerations and the numbers and types of associated injuries relate to the new occupant protection requirements levied upon future space vehicles. Understanding this relationship will allow better quantification of the risk of injury for future spacecraft designs. METHODS An estimate of injury occurrence during Soyuz landings has been determined using data contained in NASA flight medicine databases and supplemented with data collected from crew members and flight surgeons. At the time of this abstract, 96 USOS astronauts have returned to Earth in the Soyuz (59 US, 31 International Partner, and 6 spaceflight participants). Of that total, data from 80individual crew landings has been collected through this study as of September 2023. Injuries are classified either as contusions/abrasions, Class I (minor, no medical follow-up), Class II (moderate, medical follow-up necessary), Class III (severe), or Class IV (life threatening). Current NASA occupant protection standards are primarily based on the Multi-axial Dynamic Response Index (MDRI), which is a simple lumped-parameter spring, mass, damper model tuned to human impact responses in three orthogonal axes. RESULTS Using what is known about Soyuz landing dynamics from airborne and drop test data, the MDRI predicts essentially no Class IV or III injuries, < 1% Class II injuries, and < 5% Class I injuries. Approximately one-third of all USOS crewmembers for whom data has been gathered have suffered some sort of injury related to landing in the Soyuz vehicle. Most of these injuries fall into the contusion/abrasion category (21.3%) (n.b. This is the percent for whom contusion/abrasion was the worst injury. Those with class I or II injuries typically also received contusions/abrasions). Class I injuries have been sustained by 5.0% of all crew, and Class II injuries have been observed in 3.8%. No Class III or IV injuries have been sustained to date. Forty-three injuries have been documented, with some crewmembers sustaining more than one injury in a single landing. The knee was the most likely area of injury (n=9), followed by the back (n=8), then the arm (n=7). CONCLUSION Soyuz landing dynamics are the most comparable analog environment for the anticipated loads associated with Orion and commercial crew vehicle landings. The MDRI under predicts the percentage of Class II injuries experienced during Soyuz landings, but it is better at predicting Class I injury occurrences. However, if contusions/abrasions are included in the minor injury Class I category, then the MDRI vastly under predicts those injuries as well. Given this data, it is important to re-evaluate the expected injury rates for future vehicles and work toward improving the predictive tools for spaceflight use. Spaceflight deconditioning may account for some of the under prediction, and work is ongoing to assess the relationship between landing injuries and impact tolerance changes due to spaceflight deconditioning. Future work includes expanding this study to involve private space missions on new vehicles to better characterize the effects of time in flight, suit and seat design, and vehicle dynamics.

N Newby↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

EVA SPACESUIT INCIDENCE TRACKING

INTRODUCTION: Extravehicular Activity (EVA)suit-related injuries to crew during training and inflight operations are not uncommon. Systematic tracking of these issues has waxed and waned throughout NASA’s history. Given two new EVA suits in development and an increase in EVA training, the need for dutiful recording of this data is critical. The Suited User Incident Tracking System (SUITS) was developed in the last decade to track all suited exposures, recording exposure details and any related issues, pains, or injuries that arise. METHODS: SUITS data collected from 2017 to 2022 was analyzed for issue frequency and severity for each body location and plotted to visualize where issues were occurring. Clustering techniques using a k-modes approach were also applied to the data set to generate profiles of populations that experienced issues in the suit, and populations that did not. RESULTS:A key finding from SUITS is that discomfort and pain observed in the new planetary spacesuits are occurring in new body locations than those experienced in the microgravity space suit (Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU)).To date, the lower body and torso regions account for most pain reports in planetary spacesuits whereas most reports in EMU were shoulders and hands. DISCUSSION:SUITS will continue to be used to capture exposures for all suit types. As training suit availability improves and training cadence increases in preparation for planetary missions, it is critical to capture and assess all suit incidences. Further, a Suited Anomaly Assessment Team (SAAT) consisting of a broad range of EVA stakeholders was formed to share and act on SUITS data with the goal of developing robust solutions to issues/injuries as they arise. Understanding the types and locations of injuries that occur during suited operations will help inform future work related to EVA fitness training requirements, suit design, and modeling efforts to avoid injury. LEARNING OBJECTIVES: 1. Systematic tracking of suited exposures and issues is critical for understanding the complex interaction between the human and the EVA spacesuit. 2. As EVA suit issues/injuries arise it is important to share that data with a broad group to ensure robust strategies are developed.

N Newby↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Soyuz Landing Risk Characterization

INTRODUCTION United States On-orbit Segment (USOS) astronauts have been returning to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Russian Soyuz vehicle since 2003. The energetics associated with Soyuz landings are comparable to our next generation of US space vehicles (Orion, Crew Dragon, and Starliner). Soyuz also lands crew in a similar state of spaceflight deconditioning that is anticipated using the future vehicles. A number of injuries have now been observed during these Soyuz landings. Currently it is unknown how Soyuz landing accelerations and the numbers and types of associated injuries relate to the new occupant protection requirements levied upon future space vehicles. Understanding this relationship will allow better quantification of the risk of injury for future spacecraft designs. METHODS An estimate of injury occurrence during Soyuz landings has been determined using data contained in NASA flight medicine databases and supplemented with data collected from crewmembers and flight surgeons. At the time of this abstract, 96 USOS astronauts have returned to Earth in the Soyuz (59 US, 31 International Partner, and 6 spaceflight participants). Of that total, data from 80 individual crew landings has been collected through this study as of September 2023. Injuries are classified either as contusions/abrasions, Class I (minor, no medical follow-up), Class II (moderate, medical follow-up necessary), Class III (severe), or Class IV (life threatening). Current NASA occupant protection standards are primarily based on the Multi-axial Dynamic Response Index (MDRI), which is a simple lumped-parameter spring, mass, damper model tuned to human impact responses in three orthogonal axes. RESULTS Using what is known about Soyuz landing dynamics from airborne and drop test data, the MDRI predicts essentially no Class IV or III injuries, < 1% Class II injuries, and < 5% Class I injuries. Approximately one-third of all USOS crewmembers for whom data has been gathered have suffered some sort of injury related to landing in the Soyuz vehicle. Most of these injuries fall into the contusion/abrasion category (21.3 %) (n.b. This is the percent for whom contusion/abrasion was the worst injury. Those with class I or II injuries typically also received contusions/abrasions). Class I injuries have been sustained by 5.0% of all crew, and Class II injuries have been observed in 3.8%. No Class III or IV injuries have been sustained to date. Forty-three injuries have been documented, with some crewmembers sustaining more than one injury in a single landing. The knee was the most likely area of injury (n=9), followed by the back (n=8), then the arm (n=7). CONCLUSION Soyuz landing dynamics are the most comparable analog environment for the anticipated loads associated with Orion and commercial crew vehicle landings. The MDRI under predicts the percentage of Class II injuries experienced during Soyuz landings, but it is better at predicting Class I injury occurrences. However, if contusions/abrasions are included in the minor injury Class I category, then the MDRI vastly under predicts those injuries as well. Given this data, it is important to re-evaluate the expected injury rates for future vehicles and work toward improving the predictive tools for spaceflight use. Spaceflight deconditioning may account for some of the under prediction, and work is ongoing to assess the relationship between landing injuries and impact tolerance changes due to spaceflight deconditioning. Future work includes expanding this study to involve private space missions on new vehicles to better characterize the effects of time in flight, suit and seat design, and vehicle dynamics.

P Greenhalgh↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

3D Scanning System to Assess Gravity-Dependent Body Shape Changes

The human body shows unique morphological changes when exposed to different gravity conditions, including muscle atrophy, fluid shift, and spinal elongation. Such changes need to be incorporated for human-system integration in the vehicle habitat, garment, and spacesuit designs, as inaccurate body measurements can result in suboptimal crew protection that can potentially decrease injury tolerance. However, measurement tools have not been available for accurate assessments of body shape changes. This work aimed to develop a prototype 3-D body scanning system with the configuration and performance optimized for in-flight crewmember body scanning. A scan hardware system was developed using Intel RealSense commercial off-the-shelf 3D sensors. The sensor parameters were iteratively optimized and tested to obtain the performance level needed for body scanning. A scan booth structure was fabricated, with the overall size 4 x 4 x 8 feet. The specific number of sensors and mounting positions were determined by iterative simulations, which indicated that 16 cameras can capture 94% and 96% of body surface area from the 1st percentile female and 99th percentile male crew population subject. The mounted sensors were linked through a mix of USB-C and USB-3 cables and operated for data acquisition from a Linux laptop computer. A software prototype was developed using Python and Tkinter graphical user interface toolkit. A calibration procedure was also built using a panel of QR codes. A computer vision tool detected and decoded the unique ID and pattern locations of the QR codes. The calibration information determined the position and orientation of the 3D sensors with respect to each other. The scanner performance was assessed using a set of 3D printed custom manikins. The manikin size and shape were derived from the previous ISS study, which measured the crewmembers’ anthropometry changes across the different flight phases. The average anthropometric measurements at the pre-flight and flight day 15 were sampled and projected onto the 1st percentile female and 99th percentile male body shapes. Another pair of manikins were also 3D printed to simulate the neutral body posture, estimated from ISS microgravity environments. A preliminary analysis assessed the performance of the newly developed scanner against the reference scanner, which has been used at the NASA JSC for crew and test subject anthropometry. Although the new scanner data showed several artifacts and missing geometries in the occluded body areas such as armpits and crotch, overall shape matched with the reference scan. When the manikin surface coordinates were compared, a root mean square error of 1.3 cm was observed from the manikin torso segment. Linear measurements including the stature, knee height and circumference measurements at the chest and calf showed differences from the reference scan measurements, ranging between 0.3 and 0.9 cm. Overall, this work demonstrated a development framework for an in-flight scanner with design and operation optimized for crewmember body scanning. Further improvement can potentially provide previously unavailable anthropometric data from different gravitational environments, including 0-g, 1/6-g, and 1-g. Such data can improve suit fit, habitat design, exercise efficacy quantification and sizing of orthostatic intolerance garments.

K H Kim↗