Measuring Astronaut Performance During Long Missions

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Astronaut Scott Kelly’s year-long stay in space is helping NASA learn more about how a long stay in space can affect the human body. Kelly underwent monitoring to determine how fluid distribution in his body affected functions including his eyesight, fine motor control and reaction speed. As NASA prepares to send astronauts on long voyages into space to visit an asteroid and ultimately Mars, the agency wants to better understand how behavioral health and performance factors, including isolation, stress, and lack of sleep may affect astronaut performance, and how to address these issues.

NASA is addressing these issues and is beginning to understand how they affect mission and task performance as astronauts conduct simulated space missions in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA), a high-fidelity research venue at Johnson Space Center. Starting in 2017, the agency will incorporate a cockpit simulation capability from Draper that monitors how human operators interact with space vehicle systems in real time to understand how changes in behavioral health and performance affect astronauts’ ability to control a spacecraft.

NASA’s Human Research Program selected Draper on May 16 to work on “Real-Time Estimation of the Effects of a Simulated Long-Duration Exploration Mission on Flight Performance, Workload and Situation Awareness.”  

Crews will spend 45 days working inside the HERA, while scientists gather data on their health and performance. Draper’s simulator monitors performance during scenarios including docking NASA’s Orion spacecraft with the International Space Station, space walks and landing a spacecraft on a planetary surface like the Moon or Mars.

“We have a validated hardware/software solution that has operational relevance for studying the factors associated with long-duration spaceflight and how those issues affect performance on mission critical tasks,” said Kevin Duda, the project’s principal investigator and Draper’s group leader for human systems integration.

Draper’s simulator software analyzes the motion and state of the spacecraft, the pilot’s control input and their spoken verbal callouts of key system parameters to objectively estimate the pilot’s performance, workload and situation awareness. The work leverages Draper’s expertise in spacecraft controls as well as using human systems engineering to optimize systems for astronauts, soldiers and other users.