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Longitudinal Impacts of Simulated Long-Duration Spaceflight Missions on Operationally Relevant Measures of Human
Aleksandra S Stankovic1, Alyssa Pryputniewicz2, Sherrie Holder2
1Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
Human Factors
|August 5, 2022
Summary
Astronaut performance in spaceflight simulations varied with mission duration. Flight accuracy initially improved then declined, while workload consistently decreased, indicating distinct impacts of long-duration missions.
Area of Science:
- Human factors in aerospace engineering
- Spaceflight analog research
- Cognitive performance during long-duration missions
Background:
- Objective assessment of task performance is crucial for identifying degradations during space missions.
- Real-time performance measures offer timely insights into crew capabilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantify flight performance and workload in a long-duration spaceflight analog.
- To longitudinally assess these measures across mission duration.
- To utilize a portable simulation platform for data collection.
Main Methods:
- Collected flight performance measures on a piloted lunar lander task.
- Included 32 crewmembers across 8 simulated 45-day space missions (623 sessions).
- Analyzed data longitudinally across mission duration.
Main Results:
- Mission duration significantly affected flight performance, with accuracy peaking mid-mission and then declining.
- Workload measures showed a consistent linear decrease, suggesting task learning.
- Discrepancies observed between flight performance and workload trends.
Conclusions:
- Mission duration has a differential impact on various aspects of task performance.
- Flight accuracy is sensitive to time in mission, unlike workload which decreases with learning.
- Highlights the need for specific measurement tools to track distinct performance metrics.
Keywords:
analog environmentshuman performancelong-duration spaceflightoperationally relevant performance metricsMore Related Videos
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