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NASA NTRS1995

A prototype Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC)

The National Collaboratory concept has great potential for enabling 'critical mass' working groups and highly interdisciplinary research projects. We report here on a new program to build a prototype collaboratory using the Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and a group of associated scientists. The Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC) is a joint venture of researchers in upper atmospheric and space science, computer science, and behavioral science to develop a testbed for collaborative remote research. We define the 'collaboratory' as an advanced information technology environment which enables teams to work together over distance and time on a wide variety of intellectual tasks. It provides: (1) human-to-human communications using shared computer tools and work spaces; (2) group access and use of a network of information, data, and knowledge sources; and (3) remote access and control of instruments for data acquisition. The UARC testbed is being implemented to support a distributed community of space scientists so that they have network access to the remote instrument facility in Kangerlussuaq and are able to interact among geographically distributed locations. The goal is to enable them to use the UARC rather than physical travel to Greenland to conduct team research campaigns. Even on short notice through the collaboratory from their home institutions, participants will be able to meet together to operate a battery of remote interactive observations and to acquire, process, and interpret the data.

Clauer, C. R.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Enabling Science and Deep Space Exploration through Space Launch System (LSL) Secondary Payload Opportunities

For the first time in almost 40 years, a NASA human-rated launch vehicle has completed its Critical Design Review (CDR). By reaching this milestone, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft are on the path to launch a new era of deep space exploration. NASA is making investments to expand science and exploration capability of the SLS by developing the capability to deploy small satellites during the trans-lunar phase of the mission trajectory. Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1), currently planned for launch no earlier than July 2018, will be the first mission to carry such payloads on the SLS. The EM-1 launch will include thirteen 6U Cubesat small satellites that will be deployed beyond low earth orbit. By providing an earth-escape trajectory, opportunities are created for advancement of small satellite subsystems, including deep space communications and in-space propulsion. This SLS capability also creates low-cost options for addressing existing Agency strategic knowledge gaps and affordable science missions. A new approach to payload integration and mission assurance is needed to ensure safety of the vehicle, while also maintaining reasonable costs for the small payload developer teams. SLS EM-1 will provide the framework and serve as a test flight, not only for vehicle systems, but also payload accommodations, ground processing, and on-orbit operations. Through developing the requirements and integration processes for EM-1, NASA is outlining the framework for the evolved configuration of secondary payloads on SLS Block upgrades. The lessons learned from the EM-1 mission will be applied to processes and products developed for future block upgrades. In the heavy-lift configuration of SLS, payload accommodations will increase for secondary opportunities including small satellites larger than the traditional Cubesat class payload. The payload mission concept of operations, proposed payload capacity of SLS, and the payload requirements for launch and deployment will be described to provide potential payload users an understanding of this unique exploration capability.

Singer, Jody↗
NASA NTRS2016

Secondary Payload Opportunities on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) Enable Science and Deep Space Exploration

For the first time in almost 40 years, a NASA human-rated launch vehicle has completed its Critical Design Review (CDR). With this milestone, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft are on the path to launch a new era of deep space exploration. This first launch of SLS and the Orion Spacecraft is planned no later than November 2018 and will fly along a trans-lunar trajectory, testing the performance of the SLS and Orion systems for future missions. NASA is making investments to expand the science and exploration capability of the SLS by developing the capability to deploy small satellites during the trans-lunar phase of the mission trajectory. Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) will include thirteen 6U Cubesat small satellites to be deployed beyond low earth orbit. By providing an earth-escape trajectory, opportunities are created for the advancement of small satellite subsystems, including deep space communications and in-space propulsion. This SLS capability also creates low-cost options for addressing existing Agency strategic knowledge gaps and affordable science missions. A new approach to payload integration and mission assurance is needed to ensure safety of the vehicle, while also maintaining reasonable costs for the small payload developer teams. SLS EM-1 will provide the framework and serve as a test flight, not only for vehicle systems, but also payload accommodations, ground processing, and on-orbit operations. Through developing the requirements and integration processes for EM-1, NASA is outlining the framework for the evolved configuration of secondary payloads on SLS Block upgrades. The lessons learned from the EM-1 mission will be applied to processes and products developed for future block upgrades. In the heavy-lift configuration of SLS, payload accommodations will increase for secondary opportunities including small satellites larger than the traditional Cubesat class payload. The payload mission concept of operations, proposed payload capacity of SLS, and the payload requirements for launch and deployment will be described to provide potential payload users an understanding of this unique exploration capability.

Singer, Jody↗
NASA NTRS2019

Challenges and Opportunities of International Cooperation for Safety & Mission Assurance (SMA) on the European Service Module (ESM) of the Orion Program

ESA is providing the ESM to NASA for the Orion Program in accordance with the Implementing Arrangement (IA) established between the two Agencies in 2012. This IA is a barter agreement, in which ESA provides Service Module vehicles for the first two flights of Orion in exchange for two servicing missions to the ISS. This arrangement has provided opportunities and challenges to both communities. It represents an important opportunity for ESA to build on its experience in the development and operations of ATV and play an active role in the development and flight of a manned space vehicle. This paper will explore some of the unique aspects of this arrangement as it affects Safety & Mission Assurance (SMA).The assessment of ESM compliance with applicable safety requirements is the responsibility of the Joint Safety and Engineering Review Panel (JSERP). The JSERP has two features that are relatively unique amongst NASA safety panels. First, NASA Engineering and SMA organizations co-chair this Panel. Previously, Safety has chaired, with Engineering as a member of the Panel. Inclusion of Engineering as a co-chair has offered greater leverage within the technical community. Second, the JSERP includes a second set of co-chairs from ESA Engineering and ESA Product Assurance and Safety (PA/S) organizations. This recognizes the international arrangement as one of partnership.Another source of both opportunity and challenge is the differing experience base of ESA and NASA. NASA has decades of experience in manned spaceflight, dating back to the Mercury program and following through Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, Shuttle and the International Space Station. The risk posture for manned missions is much more rigorous than for unmanned missions. ESA brings a wealth of knowledge as well, with their flights of Ariane and Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), development and operation of the Columbus module on ISS, and satellite programs. The result is that both parties have developed paradigms related to risk and failure that contribute to ESM discussions.Orion represents humanity's first venture beyond Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) in over fifty years. Much of that experience is captured in program documents, but first-hand knowledge is limited to a few spaceflight veterans. Missions to LEO have offered the opportunity of direct, near-instantaneous communications and assistance, and the ability to return to Earth within a matter of hours in case of emergency. Outward-bound missions do not have these features and will require a more autonomous spacecraft with attendant safety-related issues.This paper will explore these and other challenges as we approach the flight of the first Orion vehicle.

Ciancone, Michael L.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Safety & Mission Assurance (SMA) Activities in Support of Artemis I and Plans for Artemis II

The Artemis I mission in 2022 accomplished humanity’s first venture beyond Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) with a human-rated spacecraft in over fifty years. Artemis comprises several key Program elements – Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Orion Crew Module, Service Module, Launch Abort System; the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Exploration Ground System (EGS). Much of our human spaceflight experience with crewed lunar missions is captured in historical program documents, but first-hand knowledge is limited to a few spaceflight veterans. Missions to LEO have offered the opportunity of direct, near-instantaneous communications and assistance, and the ability to return to Earth within a matter of hours in case of emergency. Outward-bound missions do not have these features and will require a more autonomous and reliable spacecraft. The assessment of compliance with applicable safety requirements and adequacy of hazard controls and verifications is the responsibility of the MPCV Safety and Engineering Review Panel (MSERP), along with a Joint [NASA/ESA] Safety and Engineering Review Panel (JSERP) for the review of the European Service Module (ESM). The MSERP has two features that are relatively unique amongst NASA safety panels. First, NASA Engineering was added as a Panel co-chair, which enhanced the Engineering organization’s engagement and level of understanding of hazard analysis methodology and results. The MSERP has representation from each office, including Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) and Health and Medical Technical Authority, supporting the Orion Program in addition to the Engineering and Safety Technical Authority co-chairs. Second, the JSERP has a second set of co-chairs from ESA Engineering and ESA Product Assurance and Safety organizations, which recognizes the international arrangement as one of partnership. This paper will focus on SMA processes, activities, and plans for the Orion element and explore unique challenges associated with Artemis II as we approach the flight of the first crewed Orion vehicle.

Paul J. Collier↗
NASA NTRS2004

Integrating Indigenous Traditional, Local and Scientific Knowledge for Improved Management, Policy and Decision-Making in Reindeer Husbandry in the Russian Arctic

As scientists and policy-makers from both indigenous and non-indigenous communities begin to build closer partnerships to address common sustainability issues such as the health impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities, it becomes increasingly important to create shared information management systems which integrate all relevant factors for optimal information sharing and decision-making. This paper describes a new GIs-based system being designed to bring local and indigenous traditional knowledge together with scientific data and information, remote sensing, and information technologies to address health-related environment, weather, climate, pollution and land use change issues for improved decision/policy-making for reindeer husbandry. The system is building an easily-accessible archive of relevant current and historical, traditional, local and remotely-sensed and other data and observations for shared analysis, measuring, and monitoring parameters of interest. Protection of indigenous culturally sensitive information will be respected through appropriate data protocols. A mechanism which enables easy information sharing among all participants, which is real time and geo-referenced and which allows interconnectivity with remote sites is also being designed into the system for maximum communication among partners. A preliminary version of our system will be described for a Russian reindeer test site, which will include a combination of indigenous knowledge about local conditions and issues, remote sensing and ground-based data on such parameters as the vegetation state and distribution, snow cover, temperature, ice condition, and infrastructure.

Maynard, Nancy G.↗
NASA NTRS1994

SCL: An off-the-shelf system for spacecraft control

In this age of shrinking military, civil, and commercial space budgets, an off-the-shelf solution is needed to provide a multimission approach to spacecraft control. A standard operational interface which can be applied to multiple spacecraft allows a common approach to ground and space operations. A trend for many space programs has been to reduce operational staff by applying autonomy to the spacecraft and to the ground stations. The Spacecraft Command Language (SCL) system developed by Interface and Control Systems, Inc. (ICS) provides an off-the-shelf solution for spacecraft operations. The SCL system is designed to provide a hyper-scripting interface which remains standard from program to program. The spacecraft and ground station hardware specifics are isolated to provide the maximum amount of portability from system to system. Uplink and downlink interfaces are also isolated to allow the system to perform independent of the communications protocols chosen. The SCL system can be used for both the ground stations and the spacecraft, or as a value added package for existing ground station environments. The SCL system provides an expanded stored commanding capability as well as a rule-based expert system on-board. The expert system allows reactive control on-board the spacecraft for functions such as electrical power systems (EPS), thermal control, etc. which have traditionally been performed on the ground. The SCL rule and scripting capability share a common syntax allowing control of scripts from rules and rules from scripts. Rather than telemeter over sampled data to the ground, the SCL system maintains a database on-board which is available for interrogation by the scripts and rules. The SCL knowledge base is constructed on the ground and uploaded to the spacecraft. The SCL system follows an open-systems approach allowing other tasks to communicate with SCL on the ground and in space. The SCL system was used on the Clementine program (launched January 25, 1994) and is required to have bidirectional communications with the guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) algorithms which were written as another task. Sequencing of the spacecraft maneuvers are handled by SCL, but the low-level thruster pulse commands are handled by the GNC software. Attitude information is reported back as telemetry, allowing the SCL expert system to inference on the changing data. The Clementine SCL flight software was largely reused from another Naval Center for Space Technology (NCST) satellite program. This paper details the SCL architecture and how an off-the-shelf solution makes sense for multimission spacecraft programs. The Clementine mission will be used as a case study in the application of the SCL to a 'fast track' program. The benefits of such a system in a 'better, cheaper, faster' climate will be discussed.

Buckley, Brian↗
NASA NTRS2004

Formal Consistency Verification of Deliberative Agents with Respect to Communication Protocols

The aim of this paper is to show a method that is able to detect inconsistencies in the reasoning carried out by a deliberative agent. The agent is supposed to be provided with a hybrid Knowledge Base expressed in a language called CCR-2, based on production rules and hierarchies of frames, which permits the representation of non-monotonic reasoning, uncertain reasoning and arithmetic constraints in the rules. The method can give a specification of the scenarios in which the agent would deduce an inconsistency. We define a scenario to be a description of the initial agent s state (in the agent life cycle), a deductive tree of rule firings, and a partially ordered set of messages and/or stimuli that the agent must receive from other agents and/or the environment. Moreover, the method will make sure that the scenarios will be valid w.r.t. the communication protocols in which the agent is involved.

Ramirez, Jaime↗
DOE OSTI2021

Potential ecological impacts of climate intervention by reflecting sunlight to cool Earth

As the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more severe, several approaches for deliberate climate intervention to reduce or stabilize Earth’s surface temperature have been proposed. Solar radiation modification (SRM) is one potential approach to partially counteract anthropogenic warming by reflecting a small proportion of the incoming solar radiation to increase Earth’s albedo. While climate science research has focused on the predicted climate effects of SRM, almost no studies have investigated the impacts that SRM would have on ecological systems. The impacts and risks posed by SRM would vary by implementation scenario, anthropogenic climate effects, geographic region, and by ecosystem, community, population, and organism. Complex interactions among Earth’s climate system and living systems would further affect SRM impacts and risks. We focus here on stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI), a well-studied and relatively feasible SRM scheme that is likely to have a large impact on Earth’s surface temperature. We outline current gaps in knowledge about both helpful and harmful predicted effects of SAI on ecological systems. Desired ecological outcomes might also inform development of future SAI implementation scenarios. In addition to filling these knowledge gaps, increased collaboration between ecologists and climate scientists would identify a common set of SAI research goals and improve the communication about potential SAI impacts and risks with the public. Without this collaboration, forecasts of SAI impacts will overlook potential effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services for humanity.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Contrasting student and staff perceptions of preclinical‐to‐clinical transition at a Chilean dental school

Abstract Introduction Dental education is a challenging and demanding field of study as students are expected to acquire various competencies to fulfil their professional requirements after graduation. The objective of this study was to investigate and compare dental students' and clinical staff instructors' perceptions of the preclinical‐to‐clinical transition training at a Dental School in Santiago, Chile. Material and Methods Two questionnaires containing 11 quantitative and one qualitative item were developed to assess our year three, four and five ( n = 244) dental undergraduate students' challenges when they begin treating patients, and clinical staff ( n = 78) perceptions of the preparedness to treat patients of the same students. Both questionnaires were voluntarily and anonymously implemented eight weeks after the beginning of the 2019 academic year. Responses were analysed using a Chi‐squared test for each quantitative question, while qualitative comments were studied to form themes and dimensions. RESULTS A total of 234 (96%) students and 60 (77%) instructors completed their respective questionnaire. There were considerable variations between students in the different years of the programme, as well as between students and staff members. Students and instructors felt the former had enough knowledge to treat patients though it was difficult for them to apply it in clinical practice. Again, both believed they could communicate with patients, but third year students asked for more training on this. Regarding practical skills, fourth‐ and fifth‐year students felt prepared but not third year students, who preferred to work in pairs with senior students, a preference that was shared by the instructors. All student groups asked clinical staff to provide more frequent, constructive and consistent feedback and felt that the difference between simulation and clinical environments and the amount of clinical work to fulfil clinical requirements made them feel stressed. Another mentioned stressor was students' low self‐confidence when working with patients. Among the requested improvements, students requested better training on how the dental clinic works to save time. Conclusions Preclinical‐to‐clinical transition training presents several challenges. Some of the problems highlighted by both students and clinical staff members persisted with the transition after three, four and even five years of training, which needs to be addressed.

Tricio, Jorge↗
NASA NTRS1991

Lewis Research Center R and D Facilities

The NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) defines and develops advanced technology for high priority national needs. The work of the Center is directed toward new propulsion, power, and communications technologies for application to aeronautics and space, so that U.S. leadership in these areas is ensured. The end product is knowledge, usually in a report, that is made fully available to potential users--the aircraft engine industry, the energy industry, the automotive industry, the space industry, and other NASA centers. In addition to offices and laboratories for almost every kind of physical research in such fields as fluid mechanics, physics, materials, fuels, combustion, thermodynamics, lubrication, heat transfer, and electronics, LeRC has a variety of engineering test cells for experiments with components such as compressors, pumps, conductors, turbines, nozzles, and controls. A number of large facilities can simulate the operating environment for a complete system: altitude chambers for aircraft engines; large supersonic wind tunnels for advanced airframes and propulsion systems; space simulation chambers for electric rockets or spacecraft; and a 420-foot-deep zero-gravity facility for microgravity experiments. Some problems are amenable to detection and solution only in the complete system and at essentially full scale. By combining basic research in pertinent disciplines and generic technologies with applied research on components and complete systems, LeRC has become one of the most productive centers in its field in the world. This brochure describes a number of the facilities that provide LeRC with its exceptional capabilities.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1999

Dan Goldin Presentation: Pathway to the Future

In the "Path to the Future" presentation held at NASA's Langley Center on March 31, 1999, NASA's Administrator Daniel S. Goldin outlined the future direction and strategies of NASA in relation to the general space exploration enterprise. NASA's Vision, Future System Characteristics, Evolutions of Engineering, and Revolutionary Changes are the four main topics of the presentation. In part one, the Administrator talks in detail about NASA's vision in relation to the NASA Strategic Activities that are Space Science, Earth Science, Human Exploration, and Aeronautics & Space Transportation. Topics discussed in this section include: space science for the 21st century, flying in mars atmosphere (mars plane), exploring new worlds, interplanetary internets, earth observation and measurements, distributed information-system-in-the-sky, science enabling understanding and application, space station, microgravity, science and exploration strategies, human mars mission, advance space transportation program, general aviation revitalization, and reusable launch vehicles. In part two, he briefly talks about the future system characteristics. He discusses major system characteristics like resiliencey, self-sufficiency, high distribution, ultra-efficiency, and autonomy and the necessity to overcome any distance, time, and extreme environment barriers. Part three of Mr. Goldin's talk deals with engineering evolution, mainly evolution in the Computer Aided Design (CAD)/Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) systems. These systems include computer aided drafting, computerized solid models, virtual product development (VPD) systems, networked VPD systems, and knowledge enriched networked VPD systems. In part four, the last part, the Administrator talks about the need for revolutionary changes in communication and networking areas of a system. According to the administrator, the four major areas that need cultural changes in the creativity process are human-centered computing, an infrastructure for distributed collaboration, rapid synthesis and simulation tools, and life-cycle integration and validation. Mr. Goldin concludes his presentation with the following maxim "Collaborate, Integrate, Innovate or Stagnate and Evaporate." He also answers some questions after the presentation.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1999

If walls could talk

The plant cell wall is very complex, both in structure and function. The wall components and the mechanical properties of the wall have been implicated in conveying information that is important for morphogenesis. Proteoglycans, fragments of polysaccharides and the structural integrity of the wall may relay signals that influence cellular differentiation and growth control. Furthering our knowledge of cell wall structure and function is likely to have a profound impact on our understanding of how plant cells communicate with the extracellular environment.

Review↗
NASA NTRS1983

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Twenty-Fifth Anniversary, 1958-1983

This year marks a major milestone for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: its silver anniversary. It seems appropriate, on this occasion, to sum up how NASA has responded to the legislative charter that established the agency. Among the responsibilities the Congress assigned NASA in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 were these: preservation of U.S. leadership in aerospace science and technology; cooperation with other nations in the peaceful application of technology; expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and in space; pursuit of the practical benefits to be gained from aeronautical and space activities. There can be no doubt that NASA's quarter century of effort has preserved the nation's leadership role and strengthened its posture in aerospace science and technology. As for international cooperation. NASA has - since its inception - fostered the concept that the fruits of civil space research are to be shared with all mankind. The agency has provided technical assistance to scores of nations and has actively promoted cooperative ventures; indeed, virtually every major NASA space project today boasts some degree of foreign participation. In the last 25 years, man has teamed more about his planet, the near-Earth environment, and the universe than in all the prior years of history. NASA's space science program has spearheaded this great expansion of human knowledge. And, from the beginning, NASA has vigorously pursued the practical benefits that aerospace research offers. The agency pioneered in weather, communications and Earth resources survey satellites, the prime examples of space technology applied for Earth benefit, and it has built a broad base for expanding into new applications, some of which promise direct benefits of exceptional order. In aeronautical research, NASA has contributed in substantial degree to safer, better performing, more efficient, more environmentally acceptable aircraft.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2006

Star Tracker Based ATP System Conceptual Design and Pointing Accuracy Estimation

A star tracker based beaconless (a.k.a. non-cooperative beacon) acquisition, tracking and pointing concept for precisely pointing an optical communication beam is presented as an innovative approach to extend the range of high bandwidth (> 100 Mbps) deep space optical communication links throughout the solar system and to remove the need for a ground based high power laser as a beacon source. The basic approach for executing the ATP functions involves the use of stars as the reference sources from which the attitude knowledge is obtained and combined with high bandwidth gyroscopes for propagating the pointing knowledge to the beam pointing mechanism. Details of the conceptual design are presented including selection of an orthogonal telescope configuration and the introduction of an optical metering scheme to reduce misalignment error. Also, estimates are presented that demonstrate that aiming of the communications beam to the Earth based receive terminal can be achieved with a total system pointing accuracy of better than 850 nanoradians (3 sigma) from anywhere in the solar system.

star tracker↗
DOE OSTI2019

Perception of the risks of CEA Cadarache Research Centre: Reconciling the Fears with the Challenges - 19362

The CEA Cadarache Research Centre is one of the 10 research centres of the French Commission of Atomic and Alternative Energies (CEA). Distributed throughout various research platforms, the studies of the Centre focus on nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, new energy technologies (hydrogen, solar, biomass) and fundamental research in the field of vegetal biology. The French government asked nuclear professionals to open their communication channels and to provide the Local Information Commission (CLI) and the public with all the information they requested. In its concern for its image and following a policy of transparency pursued over these last few years, the Cadarache Centre has sought to reduce the population's anxiety to a level judged consistent with the actual risks involved in the activities carried out within the Cadarache Research Centre. The Communications and Public Affairs Department has been entrusted with the task of developing a communication strategy aimed at improving the surrounding population's perception of the Centre. In a first step, we tried to find out what the current perception of the Cadarache Research Centre might be by conducting a survey among the local population. Our results showed a better knowledge of the Centre's activities than had been anticipated but there is still a lack of understanding that could lead to unnecessary anxiety in the event of an incident on the site. We worked on the elaboration of the communication campaign in consultation with psychology experts who took into account the results of the survey. This year, four actions will be implemented along with the decision to conduct a new survey every two to three years. Furthermore, the setting up of a lasting structure of exchange with the population will be pursued in a form that has yet to be determined. The effects of our communication campaign have now been evaluated following the results of this second survey, two years later. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗
NASA NTRS2023

A Pilot Project for Quantifying the Effect of Medical Provider Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities on Outcomes for Spaceflight Using a Probabilistic Risk Assessment Tool

In order to enable the future of long-duration deep space exploration we must confront the uncertainty in medical risk. Limitations of communication, resupply, and evacuation in deep space will require a high degree of crew autonomy and accurate risk assessment will be critical to ensure adequate crew training and medical system design. To address this, NASA’s Human Research Program Exploration Medical Capability Element has developed the Informing Mission Planning via Analysis of Complex Tradespaces Tool (IMPACT). IMPACT is a suite of tools that can provide evidence-based, data-driven trade space assessments between available medical resources in the mass- and volume-constrained environment of a deep space exploration vehicle. In the current model, medical conditions either can or cannot be treated based on the availability of medical system resources and equipment. However, medical outcomes often depend just as much on the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) of the provider operating the system. This paper presents a method for modeling and quantifying the effect of medical officer KSA on medically relevant mission risk outcomes during spaceflight.

capabilities↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling a Voice Management System for Space Applications

The sustainable missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) envisioned for NASA’s Artemis program will require autonomous capabilities. Moreover, Artemis mission crews will need a means to efficiently interact with a spacecraft’s autonomous systems. This interaction can be facilitated by voice and speech communications because voice-based controls enable users to interact hands- and eyes-free, allowing the user to better focus on critical tasks. The goal of our project was to explore the knowledge and technology needed to successfully design effective Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) for autonomous systems utilizing Human Centered Design (HCD) principles. The focus of the human factors’ aspect of engineering, pays close attention to psychological and physiological principles in the development of autonomous crew operation systems. A main objective was to understand how a crew member, through voice interaction, could efficiently and intuitively communicate with a notional autonomous vehicle system manager. This project was a part of the NASA Moon to Mars eXploration Systems and Habitation (M2M X-Hab) 2020 Academic Innovation Challenge. The work from the BLiSS Team, at the University of Michigan, resulted in the design of a system persona, Diego, to which an astronaut may quickly build trust with autonomous systems, to alleviate known stressors on mental health expected during long duration space missions. Optimal software to facilitate integration of the system persona into a reference Lunar orbiting Gateway station was defined. Additionally, a Speech to Text (STT) system and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that could be implemented in future missions was developed on an Internet of Things (IOT) platform. The Voice User Interface (VUI) design for the M2M X-Hab 2020 project leveraged previous technology developed by the BLiSS team to incorporate a voice-based interface into NASA’s Platform for Autonomous Systems (NPAS) software. This required technologies to convert voice to text, conduct semantic interpretations, and convert responses from the autonomous system to text and to speech; additionally, the spacecraft background noise environment was assessed, a noise mitigation technique was developed, and a relatable personality for the autonomous system was developed in order to facilitate human-like conversations. The success of our effort was largely due to the diversity of the team that included expertise in Space Systems Engineering, Human Computer Interaction, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Applied Physics. The diverse perspectives fostered elaborate discussions, resulting in the conception of three main subsystems: (1) User-System, (2) NPAS-System, and (3) Environment-System. The VUI was unique and had to be efficient and intuitive. For this project, 5 subteams were formed, each with a separate objective, Voice Design team, Background Noise Mitigation team, Software Integration team and Graphical User Interface team. The BLiSS team crafted a personality for the VUI to enable human-like conversation and drive user adoption and trust. User surveys were completed and used to help determine the required VUI system personality traits by capturing perspectives and expectations of prospective “Artemis Generation Astronauts”. To further simulate human-like conversations, the system had to be able to quickly interpret user speech and be able to integrate with NASA’s NPAS platform for quick and reliable information transfer. The outcomes of our research were: (1) a working prototype user interface, that is compatible with NASA’s NPAS platform; (2) software that demonstrates the ability of the VUI system to interpret user requests and respond appropriately; (3) the capability to implement fully expanded conversations between user and system using intuitive communication in four request categories; and (4) software and hardware recommendations that optimize the system’s ability to operate in a noisy environment. Our research has laid the foundation for the development of VUI’s for autonomy, and provides a baseline for future VUI developments.

Voice user interface↗