Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “risk communication”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 199 records · Page 11

Space-Based Reconfigurable Software Defined Radio Test Bed Aboard International Space Station

The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) recently launched a new software defined radio research test bed to the International Space Station. The test bed, sponsored by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Office within NASA is referred to as the SCaN Testbed. The SCaN Testbed is a highly capable communications system, composed of three software defined radios, integrated into a flight system, and mounted to the truss of the International Space Station. Software defined radios offer the future promise of in-flight reconfigurability, autonomy, and eventually cognitive operation. The adoption of software defined radios offers space missions a new way to develop and operate space transceivers for communications and navigation. Reconfigurable or software defined radios with communications and navigation functions implemented in software or VHDL (Very High Speed Hardware Description Language) provide the capability to change the functionality of the radio during development or after launch. The ability to change the operating characteristics of a radio through software once deployed to space offers the flexibility to adapt to new science opportunities, recover from anomalies within the science payload or communication system, and potentially reduce development cost and risk by adapting generic space platforms to meet specific mission requirements. The software defined radios on the SCaN Testbed are each compliant to NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture. The STRS Architecture is an open, non-proprietary architecture that defines interfaces for the connections between radio components. It provides an operating environment to abstract the communication waveform application from the underlying platform specific hardware such as digital-to-analog converters, analog-to-digital converters, oscillators, RF attenuators, automatic gain control circuits, FPGAs, general-purpose processors, etc. and the interconnections among different radio components.

Communications↗

CubeSat Laser Infrared CrosslinK

The CubeSat Laser Infrared CrosslinK (CLICK) mission will demonstrate technology to advance the state of the art in communications between small spacecraft as well as the capability to gauge their relative distance and location. CLICK is comprised of two sequential missions. The first mission, CLICK A, is a risk reduction mission that will test out elements of the optical (laser) communications with a single 3-unit (3U) spacecraft. The key objective of this risk reduction testing is to demonstrate the fine steering mirror control system's high precision pointing performance which enables the use of a lower power laser in CLICK B/C. The goal of CLICK B/C, the second mission, is to demonstrate full-duplex (send and receive) optical communication crosslink between two 3U small spacecraft, in low-Earth-orbit, at distances between 15 and 360 miles (25 - 580 kilometres) apart at data rates greater than 20 Mbps.

precision ranging↗

Reducing Tick-Borne Disease in Alabama: Linking Health Risk Perception with Spatial Analysis Using the NASA Earth Observing System

Lyme disease (LD) accounts for most vector-borne disease reports in the U.S., and although its existence in Alabama remains controversial, other tick-borne illnesses (TBI) such as Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness (STARI) pose a health concern in the state. Phase One of the Marshall Space Flight Center-UAB DEVELOP study of TBI identified the presence of the chain of infection for LD (Ixodes scapularis ticks carrying Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria) and STARI (Amblyomma americanum ticks and an as-yet-unconfirmed agent) in Alabama. Both LD and STARI are associated with the development of erythema migrans rashes around an infected tick bite, and while treatable with oral antibiotics, a review of educational resources available to state residents revealed low levels of prevention information. To improve prevention, recognition, and treatment of TBI in Alabama, Phase Two builds a health communication campaign based on vector habitat mapping and risk perception assessment. NASA Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite imagery identified likely tick habitats using remotely sensed measurements of vegetation vigor (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and soil moisture. Likely tick habitats, identified as those containing both high vegetation density and soil moisture, included Oak Mountain State Park, Bankhead National Forest, and Talladega National Forest. To target a high-risk group -- outdoor recreation program participants at Alabama universities -- the study developed a behavior survey instrument based on existing studies of LD risk factors and theoretical constructs from the Social Ecological Model and Health Belief Model. The survey instrument was amended to include geographic variables in the assessment of TBI knowledge, attitudes, and prevention behaviors, and the vector habitat model will be expanded to incorporate additional environmental variables and in situ data. Remotely sensed environmental data combined with risk perception assessments inform an ongoing outreach campaign consisting of stakeholder meetings and educational seminars.

Hemmings, S.↗

Lay and Expert Perceptions of Planetary Protection

As space scientists and engineers plan new missions to Mars and other planets in our solar system, they will face critical questions about the potential for biological contamination of planetary surfaces. In a society that places ever-increasing importance on the role of public involvement in science and technology policy, questions about risks of biological contamination will be examined and debated in the media, and will lead to the formation of public perceptions of planetary-contamination risks. These perceptions will, over time, form an important input to the development of space policy. Previous research in public and expert perceptions of technological risks and hazards has shown that many of the problems faced by risk-management organizations are the result of differing perceptions of risk (and risk management) between the general public and scientific and technical experts. These differences manifest themselves both as disagreements about the definition (and level) of risk associated with a scientific, technological or industrial enterprise, and as distrust about the ability of risk-management organizations (both public and private) to adequately protect people's health and safety. This report presents the results of a set of survey studies designed to reveal perceptions of planetary exploration and protection from a wide range of respondents, including both members of the general public and experts in the life sciences. The potential value of this research lies in what it reveals about perceptions of risk and benefit that could improve risk-management policies and practices. For example, efforts to communicate with the public about Mars sample return missions could benefit from an understanding of the specific concerns that nonscientists have about such a mission by suggesting areas of potential improvement in public education and information. Assessment of both public and expert perceptions of risk can also be used to provide an advanced signal of aspects of planetary exploration and protection that may be particularly sensitive or controversial and that could prove problematic from a risk-management standpoint, perhaps warranting a more stringent risk-management approach than would otherwise be the case based on technical considerations alone. The design of the study compares perceptions and attitudes about space exploration relevant to a Mars sample return mission between three respondent groups: (1) members of The Planetary Society, a group representing individuals with a strong interest in space-related issues, (2) a group of university-aged students, representing a population relatively sensitive to environmental hazards, and (3) a group of life scientists outside of the space research community. Members of The Planetary Society received the survey as part of a special issue of The Planetary Report on planetary protection, which contained a number of background articles on planetary protection and related topics. A synopsis of the issue was prepared as an introduction to the survey for the other two groups.

Race, Margaret S.↗

Description and performance of a digital mobile satellite terminal

A major goal of the Mobile Satellite Experiment (MSAT-X) program at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is the development of an advanced digital terminal for use in land mobile satellite communication. The terminal has been developed to minimize the risk of applying advanced technologies to future commercial mobile satellite systems (MSS). Testing with existing L band satellites was performed in fixed, land mobile and aeronautical mobile environments. JPL's development and tests of its mobile terminal have demonstrated the viability of narrowband digital voice communications in a land mobile environment through geostationary satellites. This paper provides a consolidated description of the terminal architecture and the performance of its individual elements.

Lay, N.↗

Evolution and Implementation of the NASA Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis Concept of Operations

Reacting to potential on-orbit collision risk in an operational environment requires timely and accurate communication and exchange of data, information, and analysis to ensure informed decision-making for safety of flight and responsible use of the shared space environment. To accomplish this mission, it is imperative that all stakeholders effectively manage resources: devoting necessary and potentially intensive resource commitment to responding to high-risk conjunction events and preventing unnecessary expenditure of resources on events of low collision risk. After 10 years of operational experience, the NASA Robotic Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis (CARA) is modifying its Concept of Operations (CONOPS) to ensure this alignment of collision risk and resource management. This evolution manifests itself in the approach to characterizing, reporting, and refining of collision risk. Implementation of this updated CONOPS is expected to have a demonstrated improvement on the efficacy of JSpOC, CARA, and owner/operator resources.

operations↗

Cultural Variability in Crew Discourse

Four studies were conducted to determine features of effective crew communication in response to errors during flight. Study One examined whether US captains and first officers use different communication strategies to correct errors and problems on the flight deck, and whether their communications are affected by the two situation variables, level of risk and degree of face-threat involved in challenging an error. Study Two was the cross-cultural extension of Study One and involved pilots from three European countries. Study Three compared communication strategies of female and male air carrier pilots who were matched in terms of years and type of aircraft experience. The final study assessed the effectiveness of the communication strategies observed in Study One.

Fischer, Ute↗

Lagrange-Based Options for Relay Satellites to Eliminate Earth-Mars Communications Outages During Solar Superior Conjunctions

Recent conjunction class Mars human mission plans have generally assumed that there will inevitably be periods of communications outages between Earth and Mars. This has significant cost and risk implications for not only Mars missions, but also precursor missions in the lunar environment. But are there ways to avoid these outages? The potential exists for communications to be interrupted by Solar Superior Conjunctions (SSCs). Depending on the communications system, used, there can be communications outages up to as many as 78 days. The higher bandwidth systems experience the greatest outage. If these communications channels are interrupted due to an SSC, there are of course resulting challenges to mission operations. An outage of a few days to a few weeks could allow minor disturbances to become major concerns or even trigger subsystems failures. An inability to consult with the ground at the wrong time could result in loss of mission, loss of an element, or loss of life. Each planet in the solar system has a set of five Lagrange points associated with it and the Sun. At any given point in time, a planet or either its L4 or L5 point is visible to any other planet in the solar system, regardless of the position of the sun relative to the two. Thus, L4 and L5 have high value as relay systems to prevent communications outages. There are four sets of solar Lagrange points that may be of potential use in this study: Mars-Sun L4 and L5 points, Earth-Sun L4 and L5, Venus-Sun L4 and L5, and Mercury-Sun L4 and L5. A candidate relay satellite system will be identified, with consideration of both new technology developments and existing telecommunications satellites. This system may have implications for not only the Mars human mission architectures, but also Gateway and human lunar surface architectures as these other studies are tasked with paving the way to human Mars missions. If Mars communications outages can be eliminated, then the degree of autonomy necessary in Mars and precursor systems may be reduced.

Relay Satellite↗

NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

This document is a collection of technical reports on research conducted by the participants in the 1993 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program at KSC. The basic common objectives of the Program are: to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; to stimulate an exchange of ideas between participants and NASA; to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of participants' institutions; and to contribute to the research objectives of the NASA centers. 1993 topics include wide band fiber optic communications, a prototype expert/information system for examining environmental risks of KSC activities, alternatives to premise wiring using ATM and microcellular technologies, rack insertion end effector (RIEE) automation, FTIR quantification of industrial hydraulic fluids in perchloroethylene, switch configuration for migration to optical fiber network, and more.

Hosler, E. Ramon↗

How Public Private Partnerships Enable NASA Future Space Communication Needs

The NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program is responsible for providing communication and navigation services to scientific and human space exploration missions. SCaN's current Space Network provides radio frequency (RF) relay services to near Earth space missions via Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). SCaN plans to offer a new generation of relay services beginning in 2025, including the addition of optical communications capabilities and enhanced RF capabilities. The primary drivers behind the development of these next generation relay network services are to enhance communication and navigation services with significantly reduced development and operational costs. Several approaches being considered for implementation of these services are through government owned capabilities, through commercial service providers, or a combination of the two. One approach receiving a great deal of attention is the use of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) to develop and provide capabilities or services. Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships allows NASA and commercial entities to share the investment, standards, and risks of developing and testing new or enhanced capabilities which can benefit both NASA and the commercial space communication industry. The capabilities developed under the PPP can then be used to support the growth of the commercial satellite communications industry while simultaneously being introduced into NASA operations to provide service to future NASA missions as part of the NASA Next Generation Architecture. Partnerships formed for this purpose can also serve as the basis for further NASA acquisition activities where government and industry can continue to share the cost, risk, and benefits of space communications capability development and operations. This objective is consistent with the 2010 National Space Policy stated principles: "The United States is committed to encouraging and facilitating the growth of a U.S. commercial space sector that supports U.S. needs, is globally competitive, and advances U.S. leadership in the generation of new markets and innovation-driven entrepreneurship." [1]NASA has conducted several internal studies as well as externally funded studies with industry to define the next generation space communication architecture. NASA has approached the commercial industry through a Request for Information (RFI) to define further the next generation architecture and has conducted numerous internal and external studies. The results are promising and are shaping the approach to utilize Public Private Partnership to achieve NASA's objectives while reducing costs. The commercial satellite industry has begun to deploy high performance, high throughput global satellite constellations which have the potential to provide communication services to NASA Missions. Commercial satellite manufacturers have advanced their processes to rapidly design, build, and deliver, reliable communication satellites using minimum government oversight. In this paper, we will 1) describe the NASA Next Generation Architecture, Concept of Operations (ConOps), and salient characteristics; 2) Discuss the rational of Public-Private Partnerships to achieve NASA’s next generation communication architecture; and 3) Summarize the preliminary analysis performed to date and describe the path forward.

Stegeman, James↗

Informing New Concepts for UAS and Autonomous System Safety Management using Disaster Management and First Responder Scenarios

As emerging flight operations become more prevalent and increasingly automated and distributed, the capabilities for managing safety of vehicles and operations will also need to evolve. To address this challenge, the National Academies has envisioned an In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) capability for a wide range of aviation operations including current commercial operations as well as new entrants envisioned with advanced air mobility (AAM). The suite of IASMS services, functions, and capabilities (SFCs) would be implemented in a federated approach and would address trends as well as individual operations. Through predictive modeling and data analysis, IASMS is envisioned to identify arising risks so that they can be mitigated, in-time, before a safety incident occurs. IASMS and its requisite set of SFCs must leverage a wide range of information to perform. To better understand these new needs, FSF worked with the aviation and humanitarian communities to develop and validate scenarios that include traditional aviation operations and UAS operations intermingled as they are deployed for disaster management and first responder (DMFR) situations. The three scenarios developed include: • Post Natural disaster response, such as a hurricane, involving multiple parties utilizing traditional aviation and UAS to support rescue operations, surveil damage, and locate survivors needing assistance. • Wildfire fighting in remote locations with traditional aircraft for transport and fire-retardant delivery combined with UAS for surveillance of fire locations as well as to track individual firefighter locations. • Medical Operations and AAM in Urban Environments including passenger-carrying helicopters and AAM vehicles, medical missions (such as transport of radio-pharmaceuticals), and other UAS delivery operations (such as the delivery of defibrillators). Each scenario was developed and validated by representatives with expertise in humanitarian operations, urban and rural emergency response, air traffic management, UAS operations, and traditional flight operations. The scenario definitions address roles and responsibilities of individual actors, the appropriate utilization of UAS, and the actions taken by those actors to appropriately manage risks associated with the mission and environment. The risks to aviation traffic and to people on the ground explored included potential risks arising from incompatibilities in calculating reference altitudes (eg, differing uses of AGL, MSL, barometric, or GPS-derived values), loss of command and control (C2) communications, rapid changes in weather and winds, and physical interference. For each risk, IASMS SFCs were postulated in the context of monitoring services, risk assessment capabilities, and identifying appropriate mitigation strategies. The identified SFC capabilities were envisioned from known services postulated for IASMS and for UTM. For these unique environments, IASMS SFCs are needed to address conditions such as hazardous payloads, micro-climates and urban canyons, and the need to keep uninvolved air traffic out of the area where DMFR operations are being conducted. The second phase of analysis focused on inferring the specific information needs and the SFCs for IASMS, utilizing a structure of 16 information classes to organize requirements. For each of the risks identified in the workshops, it was postulated what data sources would be necessary to monitor critical aspects of the risk (eg, surrounding air traffic, ground population, terrain, etc). to be directly measured as well as data that would be derived, which implies additional SFCs for different actors to understand what information would likely be exchanged between parties. For an IASMS to be effective, additional research is needed to develop the advanced algorithms that can address the increasingly autonomous and complex operations in differing environments and to develop means of identifying unknown risks. Looking at these scenarios highlighted a number of research issues. These include the ability to quickly "cordon off" airspace thru temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) or other means, developing clear definitions to enable automation-based algorithms for prioritizing operations, defining airspace density metrics, standardization of altitude reporting, and establishing a basis for safety data metrics definition and collection. This paper seeks to outline the development of an IASMS in the context of the DMFR scenarios and resulting demonstrations. Utilizing this contextual approach, NASA will generate recommendations for an assured safety framework for AAM operations that enables AAM operations to safely access the NAS.

In Time Aviation Safety Management System↗

The MSFC Systems Engineering Guide: An Overview and Plan

As systems and subsystems requirements become more complex in the pursuit of the exploration of space, advanced technology will demand and require an integrated approach to the design and development of safe and successful space vehicles and there products. System engineers play a vital and key role in transforming mission needs into vehicle requirements that can be verified and validated. This will result in a safe and cost effective design that will satisfy the mission schedule. A key to successful vehicle design within systems engineering is communication. Communication, through a systems engineering infrastructure, will not only ensure that customers and stakeholders are satisfied but will also assist in identifying vehicle requirements; i.e. identification, integration and management. This vehicle design will produce a system that is verifiable, traceable, and effectively satisfies cost, schedule, performance, and risk throughout the life-cycle of the product. A communication infrastructure will bring about the integration of different engineering disciplines within vehicle design. A system utilizing these aspects will enhance system engineering performance and improve upon required activities such as Development of Requirements, Requirements Management, Functional Analysis, Test, Synthesis, Trade Studies, Documentation, and Lessons Learned to produce a successful final product. This paper will describe the guiding vision, progress to date and the plan forward for development of the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Systems Engineering Guide (SEG), a virtual systems engineering handbook and archive that will describe the system engineering processes that are used by MSFC in the development of complex systems such as the Ares launch vehicle. It is the intent of this website to be a "One Stop Shop" for our systems engineers that will provide tutorial information, an overview of processes and procedures and links to assist system engineering with guidance and references, and provide an archive of systems engineering artifacts produced by the many NASA projects developed and managed by MSFC over the years.

Shelby, Jerry A.↗

Teams in Space: Knowledge Gained, but More to Explore

NASA’s Human Research Program oversees the Team Risk (i.e., Risk of Performance and Behavioral Health Decrements due to Inadequate Cooperation, Coordination, Communication and Psychosocial Adaptation within a Team). Research in this area informs all aspects of an astronaut’s career, from hiring to training to mission support, and works to address new challenges related to lunar and Mars missions. NASA’s astronaut selection process creates an astronaut corps of highly qualified, team-oriented individuals, which allows mission planners much flexibility in composing small crews for specific missions. These crews are further developed and supported through extensive training, including team skills training, and countermeasures available to the crew throughout the mission. However, in the high consequence environment of long-duration missions, team composition is complex and is not a one-time concern to be addressed pre-mission. Team factors such as team cohesion, dyadic relationships, and shared team cognition are likely to change dynamically in response to each interaction and event experienced by the individuals and the team as a whole. Thus, monitoring and optimizing team composition at a more micro level (e.g., per task) is one way to support team functioning and performance. Spaceflight teams research also includes the multi-team system of Mission Control and coordination between space-to-ground, adding another avenue in which risk might be introduced, particularly under exploration missions that experience significant communication delays. Spaceflight teams research has recently experienced a concentrated flurry of analog research over the past decade, shedding light on the many unique challenges and potential solutions to mitigate the team risk in long-duration exploration missions. However, questions still remain about how to, for example, create unobtrusive operational measures and how to advance interdisciplinary teams research and countermeasure development. We present an overview of the challenges facing teams in space, our current knowledge, and the next steps for research and spaceflight operations.

Lauren Blackwell Landon↗

Behavioral Medicine Risks and Mitigations in Isolated, Confined, and Extreme Environments

Human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit will present unique environmental challenges to astronauts’ operational performance and well-being. Crews will need to work and live in confined and hazardous environments for prolonged missions that involve variable workloads and limitations to privacy, food options, exercise capabilities, leisure outlets, and communication with ground support personnel and loved ones. Currently, behavioral and cognitive risks of spaceflight are mitigated by selecting exceptionally resilient crews and providing extensive individual and team skills training pre-mission, as well as in-mission crew support via a suite of countermeasures targeting sleep and performance optimization, stress management, family support, and team cohesion. However, current countermeasures are difficult or impossible to implement in long-distance exploration as they require real-time communication with Earth and routine resupply. New countermeasure approaches are needed to adapt and enhance the current complement for the new challenges ahead. NASA therefore conducts research at ground-based spaceflight analogs to aid in characterizing the behavioral and cognitive risks of living and working in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) operational environments. Antarctic research stations are among the few long-duration ICE analogs in existence and are therefore uniquely positioned to support behavioral medicine research to enable human exploration beyond Earth. In this review, we will discuss previous and ongoing efforts to better understand spaceflight behavioral medicine risks, as well as validate new countermeasure approaches for future missions to the moon and Mars.

Behavioral Health↗

The Impact of Delayed Communication on NASA’s Human-Systems Operations: Preliminary Results of a Systematic Review

Throughout the history of human spaceflight, NASA has relied on a team of ground-based experts on Earth to manage its missions, vehicles, and crews to ensure crew safety and mission success. However, as missions progress beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO), this paradigm of dependence on ground must evolve. Beyond LEO, in missions to the moon and Mars, crews will confront new challenges: limited evacuation options, reduced resupply capabilities, and significant communication delays that impede real-time support from experts on the ground. This reduction in ground support amplifies the likelihood that crews will be unable to adequately respond to unanticipated, safety-critical events. Understanding the scope of these risks and identifying effective countermeasures hinges on understanding the impact of communication delays on complex operations, especially in urgent, unforeseen events. Real-time communication currently provides the crew with continuous access to a large, extensively resourced ground team skilled in anomaly resolution. However, as communication delays grow, the need to transfer some responsibilities from ground experts to onboard crew becomes evident. NASA has been exploring this shift in operational responsibilities and its effectiveness in managing complex operations for decades. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of the specific challenges posed by communication delays and the necessary countermeasures to mitigate them remains a gap. In this paper, we present an update on our systematic review of the literature on communication delays, the first in-depth review since 2013 (Rader et al.). We introduce a coding taxonomy to capture key constructs from papers of interest and discuss preliminary findings. These preliminary results suggest two significant research gaps: limited studies have been conducted 1) with lunar-like latencies and 2) on problem-solving strategies for the maximum latencies expected in Mars missions. We outline plans and propose recommendations to address these gaps through ongoing and future research.

human-systems integration↗

The Impact of Delayed Communications on NASA's Human-Systems Operations: Preliminary Results of a Systematic Review

Throughout the history of human spaceflight, NASA has relied on a team of ground-based experts on Earth to manage its missions, vehicles, and crews to ensure crew safety and mission success. However, as missions progress beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO), this paradigm of dependence on ground must evolve. Beyond LEO, in missions to the moon and Mars, crews will confront new challenges: limited evacuation options, reduced resupply capabilities, and significant communication delays that impede real-time support from experts on the ground. This reduction in ground support amplifies the likelihood that crews will be unable to adequately respond to unanticipated, safety-critical events. Understanding the scope of these risks and identifying effective countermeasures hinges on understanding the impact of communication delays on complex operations, especially in urgent, unforeseen events. Real-time communication currently provides the crew with continuous access to a large, extensively resourced ground team skilled in anomaly resolution. However, as communication delays grow, the need to transfer some responsibilities from ground experts to onboard crew becomes evident. NASA has been exploring this shift in operational responsibilities and its effectiveness in managing complex operations for decades. Nevertheless, a comprehensive understanding of the specific challenges posed by communication delays and the necessary countermeasures to mitigate them remains a gap. In this paper, we present an update on our systematic review of the literature on communication delays, the first in-depth review since 2013 (Rader et al.). We introduce a coding taxonomy to capture key constructs from papers of interest and discuss preliminary findings. These preliminary results suggest two significant research gaps: limited studies have been conducted 1) with lunar-like latencies and 2) on problem-solving strategies for the maximum latencies expected in Mars missions. We outline plans and propose recommendations to address these gaps through ongoing and future research.

earth-independence↗

NASA'S communications programs - 1985

NASA's communications program was restructured in 1979 to develop selective high risk technology forced on relief of the orbit and frequency congestion and on developing new and affordable service. The central theme of the current technology thrust is one of developing interconnectivity technology and architecture to convert the present era of bent pipe satellite utilization to one using nodal points in space for both space and earth based information gateways and interfaces to terrestrial communication systems.

Lovell, R. R.↗

Characterization of How CO2 Level May Impact Crew Performance Related to the HSIA Risk

Safety and mission critical anomalies are inevitable on NASA exploration missions. Delays and interruptions in communication with Earth-experts drives the requirement that crew resolve these anomalies on their own. The Human Factors and Behavioral Performance (HFBP) element of the NASA Human Research Program (HRP) recently stood-up the Human-System Integration Architecture (HSIA) risk. The specific risk statement is: “Given decreasing real-time ground support for execution of complex operations during future exploration missions, there is a possibility of adverse performance outcomes including that crew are unable to adequately respond to unanticipated critical malfunctions or detect safety critical procedural errors.” Reliable, on-board capabilities will need to support the crew - not only to resolve anomalies, but also to promote situation awareness (SA) and to reduce workload. Unfortunately, the present level of technological advancement limits the range of achievable intelligent support (Wu & Vera, 2019). The Human Capabilities Assessment for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) projects were devised to identify how technology may benefit crew situation awareness and enhance crew trust in the intelligent systems. A suite of time-critical and complex exploration tasks have been identified (Holden et al., 2019) that may advance human-integration Concept of Operations (ConOps) development. This ConOps (a future HFBP directed task) along with standards and guidelines (Holden et al., 2019) may be used as the foundation for human-system requirements for a self-reliant crew. Spaceflight CO2 levels are elevated relative to terrestrial levels. Above 2.5 mmHg there is an increase in the incidence of crew headaches (Law et al., 2014) and Mission Control reports of mood and performance changes in the crew. The concern is that elevated CO2 effects may exacerbate the HSIA risk. Unfortunately, effects of higher concentrations of CO2 on performance decrements are not well established. The main goal of the current report is to identify how elevated CO2 impacts the HSIA risk. The approach taken is to trace the relationship between cognitive and motor abilities required for anomaly response with critical mission tasks and the level of technological advancement to support anomaly resolution to identify how elevated CO2 may impact the HSIA risk. The conclusion is that elevated CO2 could exacerbate the HSIA risk. Several research gaps are identified.

cognition↗