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Human Systems Integration Relationships Between Deep Space and Deepwater Exploration Challenges

NASA pursuit of human missions Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) to the moon and eventually Mars will pose many new challenges. These missions are characterized by increased risks to human performance due to stress, fatigue, radiation exposure, and isolation. Fundamental changes in spaceflight operations will be required as well. A very critical part of future missions will be assisting the crew with problem-solving and contingency resolution using next-generation smart spacecraft systems. Human Systems Integration (HSI) must be included as part of the systems engineering process. Gateway1 will serve as part of the proving ground for maturing technology such as autonomous systems and space operations procedures to help meet moon mission goals and prepare humans for missions to Mars. For deep space missions, risk factors affecting humans such as mission duration, distance, and physiological/psychological effects, must be considered. A human is not a simple component but rather a system in a systems-of-systems application-a system influenced by cognitive and biological factors that are difficult to model/analyze. System complexity will demand an integrated approach that requires multiple viewpoints, including the understanding of the astronauts' capabilities and limitations to enhance safety, performance, and satisfaction on the interaction between all system users in a variety of environments to achieve acceptable mission goals and performance. HSI will play a vital role in the development of these future missions. This paper provides a discussion of HSI used at NASA and the critical role human factors engineering will play in the HSI process for future missions along with the challenges. Industries such as oil and gas (O&G) could benefit from the content of this paper to help improve the safety and operations of deepwater/oil and gas exploration activities. NASA engineering and human systems subject-matter expert personnel reviewed challenges reported in space-related environments for long space duration missions and identified similarities with the challenges encountered in deepwater exploration. The researchers noted the space industry's current solutions and proposed a system development view to solve future deepwater exploration challenges using HSI principles. This paper discusses the results of the review.

George Salazar↗

NASA NTRS2014

Open Innovation at NASA: A New Business Model for Advancing Human Health and Performance Innovations

This paper describes a new business model for advancing NASA human health and performance innovations and demonstrates how open innovation shaped its development. A 45 percent research and technology development budget reduction drove formulation of a strategic plan grounded in collaboration. We describe the strategy execution, including adoption and results of open innovation initiatives, the challenges of cultural change, and the development of virtual centers and a knowledge management tool to educate and engage the workforce and promote cultural change.

Davis, Jeffrey R.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Temporal Changes in Astronauts’ Muscle and Cardiorespiratory Physiology Pre-, In-, and Post-Spaceflight

NASA’s vision for future exploration missions depends on the ability to protect astronauts’ health and safety for performance of Extravehicular Activity (EVA), and to allow astronauts to safely egress from vehicles in a variety of landing scenarios (e.g. water landing upon return to Earth and undefined planetary/lunar landings). Prolonged exposure to spaceflight results in diminished tolerance to prolonged physical activity, decreased cardiac and sensorimotor function, and loss of bone mineral density, muscle mass, and muscle strength. For over 50 years exercise has been the primary countermeasure against these physiologic decrements during spaceflight, and while the resulting protection is adequate for ISS missions (i.e., Soyuz landing, microgravity EVAs), there is little information regarding time-course changes in muscle and aerobic performance. As spaceflight progresses towards longer exploration missions and vehicles with less robust exercise capabilities compared to ISS, countermeasures will need to be combined and optimized to protect crew health and performance across all organ systems over the course of exploration missions up to 3 years in duration. This will require a more detailed understanding of the dynamic effects of spaceflight on human performance. Thus, the focus of this study is quantifying decrements in physical performance over different mission durations, and to provide detailed information on the physiological rational for “why” and “when” observed changes in performance occur. The research proposed will temporally profile changes in astronauts’ cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle mass, strength, and endurance over spaceflight missions of 2 months, 6 months, and up to 1 year in duration. Additionally, an extrapolation model will provide predictions for changes associated with exploration missions 2-3 years in duration. To accomplish these objectives astronauts will be asked to participate in pre, in, post-flight measurement of muscle performance, muscle size, cardiorespiratory fitness and submaximal performance capabilities, as well as non-invasive assessment of cerebral and muscle oxygenation and perfusion (Table 1). Additionally, ambulatory and in-flight exercise, nutrition, and sleep will be monitored using a variety of commercial technologies and in-flight assessment tools. Significance: Our detailed testing protocol will provide valuable information for describing how and when spaceflight-induced muscle and aerobic based adaptations occur over the course of spaceflight missions up to and beyond 1 year. This information will be vital in the assessment as to whether humans can be physically ready for deep space exploration such as Mars missions with current technology, or if additional mitigation strategies are necessary.

Downs, M. E.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Microgravity effects on standardized cognitive performance measures

The purpose of this experiment, selected to fly on the International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-2) Spacelab mission, is to determine the effects of microgravity upon the cognitive skills which are critical to successful performance of many tasks on board the Space Shuttle. Six tests from the Unified Tri-service Cognitive Performance Assessment Battery (UTC-PAB) will be administered to the Mission Specialists to fulfill the goals of this experiment. These tests are based upon current theoretical models of human performance and the hypothesized effects of microgravity. The principle objective is the identification of the effects of microgravity upon specific information processing skills affecting performance from those of fatigue and shifts in work/rest cycles. Multiple measures of both short and long term fatigue will be obtained and used as a major independent variable for the analysis of these performance data. Scientific supporting studies will determine optimum practice and performance testing schedules for the astronauts. The same tests will be used post-flight to collect data on the recovery of any cognitive performance impairment compared with pre-flight, baseline levels.

Schiflett, Samuel G.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Bandwidth characteristics of multimedia data traffic on a local area network

Limited spacecraft communication links call for users to investigate the potential use of video compression and multimedia technologies to optimize bandwidth allocations. The objective was to determine the transmission characteristics of multimedia data - motion video, text or bitmap graphics, and files transmitted independently and simultaneously over an ethernet local area network. Commercial desktop video teleconferencing hardware and software and Intel's proprietary Digital Video Interactive (DVI) video compression algorithm were used, and typical task scenarios were selected. The transmission time, packet size, number of packets, and network utilization of the data were recorded. Each data type - compressed motion video, text and/or bitmapped graphics, and a compressed image file - was first transmitted independently and its characteristics recorded. The results showed that an average bandwidth of 7.4 kilobits per second (kbps) was used to transmit graphics; an average bandwidth of 86.8 kbps was used to transmit an 18.9-kilobyte (kB) image file; a bandwidth of 728.9 kbps was used to transmit compressed motion video at 15 frames per second (fps); and a bandwidth of 75.9 kbps was used to transmit compressed motion video at 1.5 fps. Average packet sizes were 933 bytes for graphics, 498.5 bytes for the image file, 345.8 bytes for motion video at 15 fps, and 341.9 bytes for motion video at 1.5 fps. Simultaneous transmission of multimedia data types was also characterized. The multimedia packets used transmission bandwidths of 341.4 kbps and 105.8kbps. Bandwidth utilization varied according to the frame rate (frames per second) setting for the transmission of motion video. Packet size did not vary significantly between the data types. When these characteristics are applied to Space Station Freedom (SSF), the packet sizes fall within the maximum specified by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The uplink of imagery to SSF may be performed at minimal frame rates and/or within seconds of delay, depending on the user's allocated bandwidth. Further research to identify the acceptable delay interval and its impact on human performance is required. Additional studies in network performance using various video compression algorithms and integrated multimedia techniques are needed to determine the optimal design approach for utilizing SSF's data communications system.

Chuang, Shery L.↗

NASA NTRS1998

National Space Biomedical Research Institute

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) sponsors and performs fundamental and applied space biomedical research with the mission of leading a world-class, national effort in integrated, critical path space biomedical research that supports NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Strategic Plan. It focuses on the enabling of long-term human presence in, development of, and exploration of space. This will be accomplished by: designing, implementing, and validating effective countermeasures to address the biological and environmental impediments to long-term human space flight; defining the molecular, cellular, organ-level, integrated responses and mechanistic relationships that ultimately determine these impediments, where such activity fosters the development of novel countermeasures; establishing biomedical support technologies to maximize human performance in space, reduce biomedical hazards to an acceptable level, and deliver quality medical care; transferring and disseminating the biomedical advances in knowledge and technology acquired through living and working in space to the benefit of mankind in space and on Earth, including the treatment of patients suffering from gravity- and radiation-related conditions on Earth; and ensuring open involvement of the scientific community, industry, and the public at large in the Institute's activities and fostering a robust collaboration with NASA, particularly through Johnson Space Center.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2006

Space Human Factors Engineering Gap Analysis Project Final Report

Humans perform critical functions throughout each phase of every space mission, beginning with the mission concept and continuing to post-mission analysis (Life Sciences Division, 1996). Space missions present humans with many challenges - the microgravity environment, relative isolation, and inherent dangers of the mission all present unique issues. As mission duration and distance from Earth increases, in-flight crew autonomy will increase along with increased complexity. As efforts for exploring the moon and Mars advance, there is a need for space human factors research and technology development to play a significant role in both on-orbit human-system interaction, as well as the development of mission requirements and needs before and after the mission. As part of the Space Human Factors Engineering (SHFE) Project within the Human Research Program (HRP), a six-month Gap Analysis Project (GAP) was funded to identify any human factors research gaps or knowledge needs. The overall aim of the project was to review the current state of human factors topic areas and requirements to determine what data, processes, or tools are needed to aid in the planning and development of future exploration missions, and also to prioritize proposals for future research and technology development.

Hudy, Cynthia↗

NASA NTRS2017

Prediction of Cognitive States During Flight Simulation Using Multimodal Psychophysiological Sensing

The Commercial Aviation Safety Team found the majority of recent international commercial aviation accidents attributable to loss of control inflight involved flight crew loss of airplane state awareness (ASA), and distraction was involved in all of them. Research on attention-related human performance limiting states (AHPLS) such as channelized attention, diverted attention, startle/surprise, and confirmation bias, has been recommended in a Safety Enhancement (SE) entitled "Training for Attention Management." To accomplish the detection of such cognitive and psychophysiological states, a broad suite of sensors was implemented to simultaneously measure their physiological markers during a high fidelity flight simulation human subject study. Twenty-four pilot participants were asked to wear the sensors while they performed benchmark tasks and motion-based flight scenarios designed to induce AHPLS. Pattern classification was employed to predict the occurrence of AHPLS during flight simulation also designed to induce those states. Classifier training data were collected during performance of the benchmark tasks. Multimodal classification was performed, using pre-processed electroencephalography, galvanic skin response, electrocardiogram, and respiration signals as input features. A combination of one, some or all modalities were used. Extreme gradient boosting, random forest and two support vector machine classifiers were implemented. The best accuracy for each modality-classifier combination is reported. Results using a select set of features and using the full set of available features are presented. Further, results are presented for training one classifier with the combined features and for training multiple classifiers with features from each modality separately. Using the select set of features and combined training, multistate prediction accuracy averaged 0.64 +/- 0.14 across thirteen participants and was significantly higher than that for the separate training case. These results support the goal of demonstrating simultaneous real-time classification of multiple states using multiple sensing modalities in high fidelity flight simulators. This detection is intended to support and inform training methods under development to mitigate the loss of ASA and thus reduce accidents and incidents.

Harrivel, Angela R.↗

NASA NTRS2001

Predicting Strength and Fatigue for Suited and Unsuited Conditions from Empirical Data

The need for longer and more labor-intensive extra-vehicular activities (EVA) is required for construction and maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS). Issues pertaining to human performance while wearing a space suit (EMU) for prolonged periods have become more important. This project was conducted to investigate how a pressurized Extra-vehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) affects human upper body joint strength and fatigue and how to predict it from computer models based on the data collected.

Maida, James C.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Astronaut Biography Project for Countermeasures of Human Behavior and Performance Risks in Long Duration Space Flights

This final report will summarize research that relates to human behavioral health and performance of astronauts and flight controllers. Literature reviews, data archival analyses, and ground-based analog studies that center around the risk of human space flight are being used to help mitigate human behavior and performance risks from long duration space flights. A qualitative analysis of an astronaut autobiography was completed. An analysis was also conducted on exercise countermeasure publications to show the positive affects of exercise on the risks targeted in this study. The three main risks targeted in this study are risks of behavioral and psychiatric disorders, risks of performance errors due to poor team performance, cohesion, and composition, and risks of performance errors due to sleep deprivation, circadian rhythm. These three risks focus on psychological and physiological aspects of astronauts who venture out into space on long duration space missions. The purpose of this research is to target these risks in order to help quantify, identify, and mature countermeasures and technologies required in preventing or mitigating adverse outcomes from exposure to the spaceflight environment

Banks, Akeem↗

NASA NTRS1985

Remotely manipulated and autonomous robotic welding fabrication in space

The results of a NASA sponsored study, performed in order to establish the feasibility of remotely manipulated or unmanned welding fabrication systems for space construction, are presented. Possible space welding fabrication tasks and operational modes are classified and the capabilities and limitations of human operators and machines are outlined. Human performance in remote welding tasks was experimentally tested under the sensing and actuation constraints imposed by remote manipulation in outer space environments. Proposals for the development of space welding technology are made and necessary future R&D efforts are identified. The development of improved visual sensing strategies and computer encoding of the human welding engineering expertise are identified as essential, both for human operator assistance and for autonomous operation in all phases of welding fabrication. Novel uses of machine vision for the determination of the weld joint and bead geometry are proposed, and a prototype of a rule-based expert system is described for the interpretation of the visually detected weld features and defects.

Agapakis, J. E.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Improving the human factors of software with CLIPS

The use of CLIPS has transformed a conventional graduate course on the human factors of software. Previously, the class centered on lectures and discussions of a mix of ideas for improving the user-friendliness of software. By using CLIPS, the course can focus instead on teaching students to build three rule-based projects in CLIPS for improving the human factors of software. For the first project, students construct a friendly CLIPS front-end to existing software. For the second project students build a CLIPS expert system to help comply with user-interface guidelines. Alternatively, students may build an expert system to assist in detecting discrepancies between user-interfaces and guidelines. For the third project, students use CLIPS to implement a GOMS Model Methodology to assess the human performance impacts of given user-interfaces. Feedback on the projects from the students' colleagues and superiors in the workplace confirm the effectiveness of this CLIPS project-oriented approach to teaching the human factors of user-computer systems. Future refinements are described. Suggestions for those wishing to try this approach are outlined.

Nagy, Thomas J.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Analysis of Aviation Safety Reporting System Incident Data Associated with the Technical Challenges of the System-Wide Safety and Assurance Technologies Project

The Aviation Safety Program (AvSP) System-Wide Safety and Assurance Technologies (SSAT) Project asked the AvSP Systems and Portfolio Analysis Team to identify SSAT-related trends. SSAT had four technical challenges: advance safety assurance to enable deployment of NextGen systems; automated discovery of precursors to aviation safety incidents; increasing safety of human-automation interaction by incorporating human performance, and prognostic algorithm design for safety assurance. This report reviews incident data from the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) for system-component-failure- or-malfunction- (SCFM-) related and human-factor-related incidents for commercial or cargo air carriers (Part 121), commuter airlines (Part 135), and general aviation (Part 91). The data was analyzed by Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) part, phase of flight, SCFM category, human factor category, and a variety of anomalies and results. There were 38 894 SCFM-related incidents and 83 478 human-factorrelated incidents analyzed between January 1993 and April 2011.

Withrow, Colleen A.↗

NASA NTRS2017

HRP Chief Scientist's Office: Conducting Research to Enable Deep Space Exploration

The HRP Chief Scientist's Office sets the scientific agenda for the Human Research Program. As NASA plans for deep space exploration, HRP is conducting research to ensure the health of astronauts, and optimize human performance during extended duration missions. To accomplish this research, HRP solicits for proposals within the U.S., collaborates with agencies both domestically and abroad, and makes optimal use of ISS resources in support of human research. This session will expand on these topics and provide an opportunity for questions and discussion with the HRP Chief Scientist. Presentations in this session will include: NRA solicitations - process improvements and focus for future solicitations, Multilateral Human Research Panel for Exploration - future directions (MHRPE 2.0), Extramural liaisons - National Science Foundation (NSF) and Department of Defense (DOD), Standardized Measures for spaceflight, Ground-based Analogs - international collaborations, and International data sharing.

Charles, J. B.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Best Practices for the Application of Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Operator State Sensing

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an emerging neuronal measurement technique with many advantages for application in operational and training contexts. Instrumentation and protocol improvements, however, are required to obtain useful signals and produce expeditiously self-applicable, comfortable and unobtrusive headgear. Approaches for improving the validity and reliability of fNIRS data for the purpose of sensing the mental state of commercial aircraft operators are identified, and an exemplary system design for attentional state monitoring is outlined. Intelligent flight decks of the future can be responsive to state changes to optimally support human performance. Thus, the identification of cognitive performance decrement, such as lapses in operator attention, may be used to predict and avoid error-prone states. We propose that attentional performance may be monitored with fNIRS through the quantification of hemodynamic activations in cortical regions which are part of functionally-connected attention and resting state networks. Activations in these regions have been shown to correlate with behavioral performance and task engagement. These regions lie beneath superficial tissue in head regions beyond the forehead. Headgear development is key to reliably and robustly accessing locations beyond the hair line to measure functionally-connected networks across the whole head. Human subject trials using both fNIRS and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) will be used to test this system. Data processing employs Support Vector Machines for state classification based on the fNIRS signals. If accurate state classification is achieved based on sensed activation patterns, fNIRS will be shown to be useful for monitoring attentional performance.

Harrivel, Angela R.↗

NASA NTRS2013

Effects of Varying Gravity Levels on fNIRS Headgear Performance and Signal Recovery

This paper reviews the effects of varying gravitational levels on functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) headgear. The fNIRS systems quantify neural activations in the cortex by measuring hemoglobin concentration changes via optical intensity. Such activation measurement allows for the detection of cognitive state, which can be important for emotional stability, human performance and vigilance optimization, and the detection of hazardous operator state. The technique depends on coupling between the fNIRS probe and users skin. Such coupling may be highly susceptible to motion if probe-containing headgear designs are not adequately tested. The lack of reliable and self-applicable headgear robust to the influence of motion artifact currently inhibits its operational use in aerospace environments. Both NASAs Aviation Safety and Human Research Programs are interested in this technology as a method of monitoring cognitive state of pilots and crew.

fNIRS↗

NASA NTRS2000

National Space Biomedical Research Institute Annual Report

This report summarizes the activities of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) during FY 2000. The NSBRI is responsible for the development of countermeasures against the deleterious effects of long-duration space flight and performs fundamental and applied space biomedical research directed towards this specific goal. Its mission is to lead a world-class, national effort in integrated, critical path space biomedical research that supports NASA's Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Strategic Plan by focusing on the enabling of long-term human presence in, development of, and exploration of space. This is accomplished by: designing, testing and validating effective countermeasures to address the biological and environmental impediments to long-term human space flight; defining the molecular, cellular, organ-level, integrated responses and mechanistic relationships that ultimately determine these impediments, where such activity fosters the development of novel countermeasures; establishing biomedical support technologies to maximize human performance in space, reduce biomedical hazards to an acceptable level, and deliver quality medical care; transferring and disseminating the biomedical advances in knowledge and technology acquired through living and working in space to the general benefit of mankind, including the treatment of patients suffering from gravity- and radiation-related conditions on Earth; and ensuring open involvement of the scientific community, industry and the public at large in the Institute's activities and fostering a robust collaboration with NASA, particularly through NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Attachment:Appendices (A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O, and P.).

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2006

Human Factors Engineering as a System in the Vision for Exploration

In order to accomplish NASA's Vision for Exploration, while assuring crew safety and productivity, human performance issues must be well integrated into system design from mission conception. To that end, a two-year Technology Development Project (TDP) was funded by NASA Headquarters to develop a systematic method for including the human as a system in NASA's Vision for Exploration. The specific goals of this project are to review current Human Systems Integration (HSI) standards (i.e., industry, military, NASA) and tailor them to selected NASA Exploration activities. Once the methods are proven in the selected domains, a plan will be developed to expand the effort to a wider scope of Exploration activities. The methods will be documented for inclusion in NASA-specific documents (such as the Human Systems Integration Standards, NASA-STD-3000) to be used in future space systems. The current project builds on a previous TDP dealing with Human Factors Engineering processes. That project identified the key phases of the current NASA design lifecycle, and outlined the recommended HFE activities that should be incorporated at each phase. The project also resulted in a prototype of a webbased HFE process tool that could be used to support an ideal HFE development process at NASA. This will help to augment the limited human factors resources available by providing a web-based tool that explains the importance of human factors, teaches a recommended process, and then provides the instructions, templates and examples to carry out the process steps. The HFE activities identified by the previous TDP are being tested in situ for the current effort through support to a specific NASA Exploration activity. Currently, HFE personnel are working with systems engineering personnel to identify HSI impacts for lunar exploration by facilitating the generation of system-level Concepts of Operations (ConOps). For example, medical operations scenarios have been generated for lunar habitation in order to identify HSI requirements for the lunar communications architecture. Throughout these ConOps exercises, HFE personnel are testing various tools and methodologies that have been identified in the literature. A key part of the effort is the identification of optimal processes, methods, and tools for these early development phase activities, such as ConOps, requirements development, and early conceptual design. An overview of the activities completed thus far, as well as the tools and methods investigated will be presented.

Mihriban Whitmore↗