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Utilization of the International Space Station for Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test (CAST)

The United States space policy is evolving toward missions beyond low Earth orbit. In an effort to meet that policy, NASA has recognized Autonomous Mission Operations (AMO) as a valuable capability. Identified within AMO capabilities is the potential for autonomous planning and replanning during human spaceflight operations. That is allowing crew members to collectively or individually participate in the development of their own schedules. Currently, dedicated mission operations planners collaborate with international partners to create daily plans for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), taking into account mission requirements, ground rules, and various vehicle and payload constraints. In future deep space operations the crew will require more independence from ground support due to communication transmission delays. Furthermore, crew members who are provided with the capability to schedule their own activities are able to leverage direct experience operating in the space environment, and possibly maximize their efficiency. CAST (Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test) is an ISS investigation designed to analyze three important hypotheses about crew autonomous scheduling. First, given appropriate inputs, the crew is able to create and execute a plan in a reasonable period of time without impacts to mission success. Second, the proximity of the planner, in this case the crew, to the planned operations increases their operational efficiency. Third, crew members are more satisfied when given a role in plan development. This paper presents the results from a single astronaut test subject who participated in five CAST sessions. The details on the operational philosophy of CAST are discussed, including the approach to crew training, selection criteria for test days, and data collection methods. CAST is a technology demonstration payload sponsored by the ISS Research Science and Technology Office, and performed by experts in Mission Operations Planning from the Flight Operations Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center, and researchers across multiple NASA centers. It is hoped the results of this investigation will guide NASA's implementation of autonomous mission operations for long duration human space missions to Mars and beyond.

Healy, Matthew

Progress of Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test (CAST) On the ISS

The United States space policy is evolving toward missions beyond low Earth orbit. In an effort to meet that policy, NASA has recognized Autonomous Mission Operations (AMO) as a valuable capability. Identified within AMO capabilities is the potential for autonomous planning and replanning during human spaceflight operations. That is allowing crew members to collectively or individually participate in the development of their own schedules. Currently, dedicated mission operations planners collaborate with international partners to create daily plans for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), taking into account mission requirements, ground rules, and various vehicle and payload constraints. In future deep space operations the crew will require more independence from ground support due to communication transmission delays. Furthermore, crew members who are provided with the capability to schedule their own activities are able to leverage direct experience operating in the space environment, and possibly maximize their efficiency. CAST (Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test) is an ISS investigation designed to analyze three important hypotheses about crew autonomous scheduling. First, given appropriate inputs, the crew is able to create and execute a plan in a reasonable period of time without impacts to mission success. Second, the proximity of the planner, in this case the crew, to the planned operations increases their operational efficiency. Third, crew members are more satisfied when given a role in plan development. This presentation shows the progress done in this study with a single astronaut test subject participating in five CAST sessions. CAST is a technology demonstration payload sponsored by the ISS Research Science and Technology Office, and performed by experts in Mission Operations Planning from the Flight Operations Directorate at NASA Johnson Space Center, and researchers across multiple NASA centers.

Healy, Matthew

Lessons Learned from International Space Station Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test

In 2017, our team investigated and evaluated the novel concept of operations of astronaut self-scheduling (rescheduling their own timeline without creating violations) onboard International Space Station (ISS). Five test sessions were completed for this technology demonstration called Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test (CAST). For the first time in a spaceflight operational environment, an ISS crewmember planned, rescheduled, and executed their activities in real-time on a mobile device while abiding by flight and scheduling constraints. This paper discusses the lessons learned from deployment to execution.

planning and scheduling

Increasing Human Spaceflight Capabilities: Demonstration of Crew Autonomy Through Self-Scheduling Onboard International Space Station

For the first time in a spaceflight operational environment, our team enabled an ISS (International Space Station) crewmember to plan, reschedule, and execute their activities in real-time while abiding by flight and scheduling constraints. The Crew Autonomous Scheduling Test (CAST) investigated the novel concept of operations: allowing crew to manage their own timeline.

crew autonomy

Future space transportation system architecture avionics requirements

NASA began a multi-center study in January 1993 to examine options for providing the most cost effective space transportation system in the future. The key advanced avionics requirements for these vehicle concepts are envisioned to provide significantly improved operational efficiency and effectiveness. It is very desirable to have adaptive guidance, navigation, and control approaches that will allow launch and return in almost any weather condition. The vehicles must be able to accommodate atmospheric density variations and winds without software changes. The flight operations must become much more autonomous in all flight regimes like an aircraft, and preflight checkout should make use of the onboard systems. When the vehicle returns to the launch site, subsystem health must be known and maintenance tasks scheduled accordingly. Ground testing of most subsystems must be eliminated. Also, the health monitoring system must be designed to enhance the ability to abort the mission significantly and save the crew and the vehicle. The displays and controls must be much less complex than current systems and must significantly reduce pilot work load. It is important to have low power, light weight displays and controls. Rendezvous and docking and all flight phases must have autopilot capability to reduce pilot work load for routine operations and in abort situations. The vehicles must have the demonstrated ability to return to the launch site. Abort from all mission phases can put additional demands on the communications system.

Stone, Howard

AMO-EXPRESS-2.5: Crew Autonomy Onboard the International Space Station

NASA is committed to landing American astronauts, including the first woman and the next man, on the Moon by 2024. Currently, the crew cannot take on all functions performed by the ground today, so the future crews will need more automation to reduce the crew workload for future missions. Of significant importance for these missions is the balance between crew autonomy and vehicle automation. The Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Autonomous Systems and Operations (ASO) Project has been investigating the ability to evaluate crew self-scheduling and activity monitoring for future space missions. The ASO project designed the Autonomous Mission and Operations- EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station Rack-2.5 (AMO-EXPRESS-2.5) payload to evaluate crew self-scheduling and activity monitoring. The AMO-EXPRESS-2.5 builds on the previous AMO-EXPRESS and AMO-EXPRESS-2.0 demonstrations on ISS. The AMO-EXPRESS-2.5 demonstration goals are to prove crew self-scheduling by planning through diagnosing systems expertise, failure detection, procedure recommendation and situational awareness. This paper will describe the development, test and execution results of the AMO-EXPRESS-2.5 demonstration, and will also outline the future planned development and operational efforts to enable autonomy for future deep space manned missions.

Brooke C. Allen

Preliminary Design of an 'Autonomous Medical Response Agent' Interface Prototype for Long Duration Spaceflight

Major challenges for astronauts in future long-duration exploration missions (LDEMs) will be that crewmembers are not expected to be medical professionals, may be under high workload and stress, are facing physiological challenges caused by spaceflight, and will have limited, delayed voice communications with medical support from Earth. An autonomous medical response agent (AMRA) is envisioned to help astronauts address medical complaints, develop a differential diagnosis, and guide self-treatment until a healthy state is restored. AMRA develops a process of personalized diagnosis and treatment through a Bayesian predictive control system that recommends therapeutic control actions including diagnostic tests and treatments to crewmembers (Menon, 2020). The Human Computer Interaction (HCI) lab from NASA Ames Research Center’s Human Systems Integration Division (Code TH) has collaborated with Nahlia Inc in human-centered design augmentation research for AMRA. The project, titled Design of ‘Autonomous Medical Response Agent Interface Prototype for Long Duration Spaceflight, has been funded by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) and introduces an interactive user-interface prototype that guides astronauts through self-diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation while communicating with remote specialists in ground support (most notably a patient’s flight surgeon). Our project develops the interaction design for the crewmember using AMRA through user research, iterative design, and usability testing to evaluate the user interface and workflow designed. The interface design deliverable for this project, titled AMRA Aggregate Information Display (AMRA AID) is an integrated information display system for comprehensive autonomous medical guidance, diagnosis, and treatment of in-flight medical conditions experienced by crewmembers. AMRA AID demonstrates how we might ensure crew autonomy, increase the crew’s medical capabilities, and decrease cognitive burden within a front-end user interface. AMRA AID refrains from relying on input from ground or mission control for self-treatment of medical issues—though ground awareness and communication with ground is maintained as a means of ensuring trust between mission control and crew. AMRA AID demonstrates how the crew’s on-board medical system might integrate with information from vehicle monitoring and crew schedule, without assuming causal relationships. AMRA AID’s comprehensive view enables efficient information access for both crew and ground support, reducing cognitive burden in the event of an unplanned or emergency medical incident and enabling informed analytical decisions to be made based on both crew and vehicle health. Human-centered design augmentation advanced within the prototype included: enhanced workflow and treatment guidance for two medical scenarios for a non-specialist user base with various levels of medical training, interaction design which considered speech (conversational user interface) elements and on-screen interactions to be developed in future iterations of the project, communication design and functional requirements relevant to self-care versus caring for another astronaut, as well as user testing of the prototype with an international space medical community. This project arrives at critical findings regarding usability needs, communication requirements, and integrated information requirements for a future technology interface functioning to increase confidence between ground support and LDEM crewmembers.

TRISH

NASA's Space Launch System Takes Shape: Progress Toward Safe, Affordable, Exploration

Development of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) exploration-class heavy lift rocket has moved from the formulation phase to implementation in 3 years and will make significant progress this year toward its first launch, slated December 2017. SLS represents a safe, affordable, and evolutionary path to development of an unprecedented capability for future human and robotic exploration and use of space. For the United States current development is focused on a configuration with a 70 metric ton (t) payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), more than double any operational vehicle. This version will launch NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) on its first autonomous flight beyond the Moon and back, as well as the first crewed Orion flight. SLS is designed to evolve to a 130 t lift capability that can reduce mission costs, simplify payload design, reduce trip times, and lower overall risk. Each vehicle element completed its respective Preliminary Design Reviews, followed by the SLS Program. The Program also completed the Key Decision Point-C milestone to move from formulation to implementation in 2014. NASA hasthorized the program to proceed to Critical Design Review, scheduled for 2015. Accomplihments to date include: manufacture of core stage test hardware, as well as preparations for testing the world's most powerful solid rocket boosters and main engines that flew 135 successful Space Shuttle missions. The Program's success to date is due to prudent use of existing technology, infrastructure, and workforce; streamlined management approach; and judicious use of new technologies. This paper will discuss SLS Program successes over the past year and examine milestones and challenges ahead. The SLS Program and its elements are managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).

Askins, Bruce R.

Development and Capabilities of Unique Structural Seal Test Rigs

High temperature structural seals are necessary in many aerospace and aeronautical applications to minimize any detrimental effects originating from undesired leakage. The NASA Glenn Research Center has been and continues to be a pioneer in the development and evaluation of these types of seals. The current focus for the development of structural seals is for the 3rd Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), which is scheduled to replace the current space shuttle system around 2025. Specific areas of development under this program include seals for propulsion systems (such as the hypersonic air-breathing ISTAR engine concept based upon Rocket Based Combined Cycle technology) and control surface seals for spacecraft including the autonomous rescue X-38 Crew Return Vehicle and the X-37 Space Maneuver Vehicle.

DeMange, Jeffrey J.

Update on the Development and Capabilities of Unique Structural Seal Test Rigs

High temperature structural seals are necessary in many aerospace and aeronautical applications to minimize any detrimental effects originating from undesired leakage. The NASA Glenn Research Center has been and continues to be a pioneer in the development and evaluation of these types of seals. The current focus for the development of structural seals is for the 3rd Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV), which is scheduled to replace the current space shuttle system by 2025. Specific areas of development under this program include seals for propulsion systems (such as the hypersonic air-breathing ISTAR engine concept based upon Rocket Based Combined Cycle technology) and control surface seals for spacecraft including the autonomous rescue X-38 Crew Return Vehicle and the X-37 Space Maneuver Vehicle.

DeMange, Jeffrey J.

NASA's Space Launch System Takes Shape: Progress Toward Safe, Affordable Exploration

Development of NASA's Space Launch System exploration-class heavy lift rocket has moved from the formulation phase to implementation in 3 years and will make significant progress this year toward its first launch, slated for December 2017. In recognition of the current fiscal realities, SLS represents a safe, affordable, and evolutionary path to development of an unprecedented capability for future human and robotic exploration and use of space. Current development is focused on a configuration with a 70 metric ton (t) payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), more than double any operational vehicle. It is this version that will launch NASA's Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) on its first autonomous flight beyond the Moon and back, as well as the first crewed Orion flight. This configuration is also designed to evolve to 130 t lift capability that offers several benefits, such as reduced mission costs, simplified payload design, faster trip times, and lower overall risk for missions of national significance. The SLS Program formally transitioned from the formulation phase to implementation during the past year, passing its Preliminary Design Review in 2013 and completion of Key Decision Point C in early 2014. NASA has authorized the Program to move forward to Critical Design Review, scheduled for 2015. Among the Program's many accomplishments are manufacture of core stage test hardware, as well as preparations for testing the world's most powerful solid rocket boosters and the main engines that flew 135 successful Space Shuttle missions. The Program's success to date is due to prudent use of existing technology, infrastructure, and workforce; streamlined management approach; and judicious use of new technologies. The result is a launch vehicle that will carry human and robotic exploration on the history-making missions in the coming decades. This paper will discuss the program and technical successes over the past year and provide a look at the milestones and challenges ahead.

Askins, Bruce

Robotic and Human-Tended Collaborative Drilling Automation for Subsurface Exploration

Future in-situ lunar/martian resource utilization and characterization, as well as the scientific search for life on Mars, will require access to the subsurface and hence drilling. Drilling on Earth is hard - an art form more than an engineering discipline. Human operators listen and feel drill string vibrations coming from kilometers underground. Abundant mass and energy make it possible for terrestrial drilling to employ brute-force approaches to failure recovery and system performance issues. Space drilling will require intelligent and autonomous systems for robotic exploration and to support human exploration. Eventual in-situ resource utilization will require deep drilling with probable human-tended operation of large-bore drills, but initial lunar subsurface exploration and near-term ISRU will be accomplished with lightweight, rover-deployable or standalone drills capable of penetrating a few tens of meters in depth. These lightweight exploration drills have a direct counterpart in terrestrial prospecting and ore-body location, and will be designed to operate either human-tended or automated. NASA and industry now are acquiring experience in developing and building low-mass automated planetary prototype drills to design and build a pre-flight lunar prototype targeted for 2011-12 flight opportunities. A successful system will include development of drilling hardware, and automated control software to operate it safely and effectively. This includes control of the drilling hardware, state estimation of both the hardware and the lithography being drilled and state of the hole, and potentially planning and scheduling software suitable for uncertain situations such as drilling. Given that Humans on the Moon or Mars are unlikely to be able to spend protracted EVA periods at a drill site, both human-tended and robotic access to planetary subsurfaces will require some degree of standalone, autonomous drilling capability. Human-robotic coordination will be important, either between a robotic drill and humans on Earth, or a human-tended drill and its visiting crew. The Mars Analog Rio Tinto Experiment (MARTE) is a current project that studies and simulates the remote science operations between an automated drill in Spain and a distant, distributed human science team. The Drilling Automation for Mars Exploration (DAME) project, by contrast: is developing and testing standalone automation at a lunar/martian impact crater analog site in Arctic Canada. The drill hardware in both projects is a hardened, evolved version of the Advanced Deep Drill (ADD) developed by Honeybee Robotics for the Mars Subsurface Program. The current ADD is capable of 20m, and the DAME project is developing diagnostic and executive software for hands-off surface operations of the evolved version of this drill. The current drill automation architecture being developed by NASA and tested in 2004-06 at analog sites in the Arctic and Spain will add downhole diagnosis of different strata, bit wear detection, and dynamic replanning capabilities when unexpected failures or drilling conditions are discovered in conjunction with simulated mission operations and remote science planning. The most important determinant of future 1unar and martian drilling automation and staffing requirements will be the actual performance of automated prototype drilling hardware systems in field trials in simulated mission operations. It is difficult to accurately predict the level of automation and human interaction that will be needed for a lunar-deployed drill without first having extensive experience with the robotic control of prototype drill systems under realistic analog field conditions. Drill-specific failure modes and software design flaws will become most apparent at this stage. DAME will develop and test drill automation software and hardware under stressful operating conditions during several planned field campaigns. Initial results from summer 2004 tests show seven identifi distinct failure modes of the drill: cuttings-removal issues with low-power drilling into permafrost, and successful steps at executive control and initial automation.

Glass, Brian

NASA's Space Launch System: Momentum Builds Toward First Launch

NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) is gaining momentum toward the first launch of a new exploration-class heavy lift launch vehicle for international exploration and science initiatives. The SLS comprises an architecture that begins with a vehicle capable of launching 70 metric tons (t) into low Earth orbit. It will launch the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) on its first autonomous flight beyond the Moon and back in December 2017. Its first crewed flight follows in 2021. SLS can evolve to a130-t lift capability and serve as a baseline for numerous robotic and human missions ranging from a Mars sample return to delivering the first astronauts to explore another planet. The SLS Program formally transitioned from the formulation phase to implementation with the successful completion of the rigorous Key Decision Point C review in 2014. As a result, the Agency authorized the Program to move forward to Critical Design Review, scheduled for 2015. In the NASA project life cycle process, SLS has completed 50 percent of its major milestones toward first flight. Every SLS element manufactured development hardware for testing over the past year. Accomplishments during 2013/2014 included manufacture of core stage test articles, preparations for qualification testing the solid rocket boosters and the RS-25 main engines, and shipment of the first flight hardware in preparation for the Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) in 2014. SLS was conceived with the goals of safety, affordability, and sustainability, while also providing unprecedented capability for human exploration and scientific discovery beyond Earth orbit. In an environment of economic challenges, the SLS team continues to meet ambitious budget and schedule targets through the studied use of hardware, infrastructure, and workforce investments the United States made in the last half century, while selectively using new technologies for design, manufacturing, and testing, as well as streamlined management approaches that have increased decision velocity and reduced associated costs. This paper will summarize recent SLS Program accomplishments, as well as the challenges and opportunities ahead for the most powerful and capable launch vehicle in history.

May, Todd A.

Ikhana: A NASA UAS Supporting Long Duration Earth Science Missions

NASA's Ikhana unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a General Atomics MQ-9 Predator-B modified to support the conduct of Earth science missions for the NASA Science Mission Directorate through partnerships, other government agencies and universities. Ikhana, a Native American word meaning 'intelligence', can carry over 2000 lbs of atmospheric and remote sensing instruments in the payload bay and external pods. The aircraft is capable of mission durations in excess of 24 hours at altitudes above 40,000 ft. Redundant flight control, avionics, power, and network systems increase the system reliability and allow easier access to public airspace. The aircraft is remotely piloted from a mobile ground control station (GCS) using both C-band line-of-sight and Ku-band over-the-horizon satellite datalinks. NASA's GCS has been modified to support on-site science monitoring, or the downlink data can be networked to remote sites. All ground support systems are designed to be deployable to support global Eart science investigations. On-board support capabilities include an instrumentation system and an Airborne Research Test System (ARTS). The ARTS can host research algorithms that will autonomously command and control on-board sensors, perform sensor health monitoring, conduct data analysis, and request changes to the flight plan to maximize data collection. The ARTS also has the ability to host algorithms that will autonomously control the aircraft trajectory based on sensor needs, (e.g. precision trajectory for repeat pass interferometry) or to optimize mission objectives (e.g. search for specific atmospheric conditions). Standard on-board networks will collect science data for recording and for inclusion in the aircraft's high bandwidth downlink. The Ikhana project will complete GCS development, science support systems integration, external pod integration and flight clearance, and operations crew training in early 2007. A large-area remote sensing mission is currently scheduled for the Summer 2007.

Cobleigh, Brent R.

Crew Scheduling Performance

As NASA considers long-duration exploration missions (LDEMs), it is envisioned that crew will behave more autonomously as compared to low-Earth orbit missions. The necessary shift of Ops Planners’ complete management of scheduling and planning to provide flexibility for crew to manage their own schedule in real-time requires significant research and investigation in evaluation of concepts of operations, of software tools to support tasks, and of crew performance to complete scheduling tasks. Our research objective is to characterize the human performance envelope for the task of planning and scheduling (crew self-scheduling), develop countermeasures to mitigate adverse performance effects due to plan complexity, and inform performance standards and guidelines based on research results. In our efforts to understand and characterize scheduling performance of crew members, we have conducted subject matter expert interviews to obtain feedback on scheduling plan complexity drivers and plan goodness. Following the pilot study conducted last year, we designed a study and have begun remote human subject testing to evaluate non-expert human performance, workload, and situational awareness for the task of planning and scheduling. This study investigates the effects of the number and type of constraints on human performance, and the differences in scheduling metrics between scheduling and rescheduling tasks. Subject testing is currently in progress, and we aim to collect data from approximately thirty subjects. We will summarize the methods used and impacts of the number and type of scheduling constraints. We will also present lessons learned as well as relevant results of the study.

crew scheduling

Orion Optical Navigation Progress Toward Exploration: Mission 1

Optical navigation of human spacecraft was proposed on Gemini and implemented successfully on Apollo as a means of autonomously operating the vehicle in the event of lost communication with controllers on Earth. It shares a history with the "method of lunar distances" that was used in the 18th century and gained some notoriety after its use by Captain James Cook during his 1768 Pacific voyage of the HMS Endeavor. The Orion emergency return system utilizing optical navigation has matured in design over the last several years, and is currently undergoing the final implementation and test phase in preparation for Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) in 2019. The software development is being worked as a Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) project delivered as an application within the Core Flight Software of the Orion camera controller module. The mathematical formulation behind the initial ellipse fit in the image processing is detailed in Christian. The non-linear least squares refinement then follows the technique of Mortari as an estimation process of the planetary limb using the sigmoid function. The Orion optical navigation system uses a body fixed camera, a decision that was driven by mass and mechanism constraints. The general concept of operations involves a 2-hour pass once every 24 hours, with passes specifically placed before all maneuvers to supply accurate navigation information to guidance and targeting. The pass lengths are limited by thermal constraints on the vehicle since the OpNav attitude generally deviates from the thermally stable tail-to-sun attitude maintained during the rest of the orbit coast phase. Calibration is scheduled prior to every pass due to the unknown nature of thermal effects on the lens distortion and the mounting platform deformations between the camera and star trackers. The calibration technique is described in detail by Christian, et al. and simultaneously estimates the Brown-Conrady coefficients and the Star Tracker/Camera interlock angles. Accurate attitude information is provided by the star trackers during each pass. Figure 1 shows the various phases of lunar return navigation when the vehicle is in autonomous operation with lost ground communication. The midcourse maneuvers are placed to control the entry interface conditions to the desired corridor for safe landing. The general form of optical navigation on Orion is where still images of the Moon or Earth are processed to find the apparent angular diameter and centroid in the camera focal plane. This raw data is transformed into range and bearing angle measurements using planetary data and precise star tracker inertial attitude. The measurements are then sent to the main flight computer's Kalman filter to update the onboard state vector. The images are, of course, collected over an arc to converge the state and estimate velocity. The same basic technique was used by Apollo to satisfy loss-of-comm, but Apollo used manual crew sightings with a vehicle-integral sextant instead of autonomously processing optical imagery. The software development is past its Critical Design Review, and is progressing through test and certification for human rating. In support of this, a hardware-in-the-loop test rig was developed in the Johnson Space Center Electro-Optics Lab to exercise the OpNav system prior to integrated testing on the Orion vehicle. Figure 2 shows the rig, which the test team has dubbed OCILOT (Orion Camera In the Loop Optical Testbed). Analysis performed to date shows a delivery that satisfies an allowable entry corridor as shown in Figure 3.

Holt, Greg N.