TY - JOUR
T1 - Human factors research as part of a Mars exploration analogue mission on Devon Island
AU - Binsted, Kim
AU - Kobrick, Ryan L.
AU - Griofa, Marc Ó
AU - Bishop, Sheryl
AU - Lapierre, Judith
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based in part (Binsted’s contribution) upon work supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the NASA Astrobiology Institute under Cooperative Agreement no. NNA04CC08A issued through the Office of Space Science.
PY - 2010/6
Y1 - 2010/6
N2 - Human factors research is a critical element of space exploration as it provides insight into a crew's performance, psychology and interpersonal relationships. Understanding the way humans work in space-exploration analogue environments permits the development and testing of countermeasures for and responses to potential hazardous situations, and can thus help improve mission efficiency and safety. Analogue missions, such as the one described here, have plausible mission constraints and operational scenarios, similar to those that a real Mars crew would experience. Long duration analogue studies, such as those being conducted at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island, Canada, offer an opportunity to study mission operations and human factors in a semi-realistic environment, and contribute to the design of missions to explore the Moon and Mars. The FMARS XI Long Duration Mission (F-XI LDM) was, at four months, the longest designed analogue Mars mission conducted to date, and thus provides a unique insight into human factors issues for long-duration space exploration. Here, we describe the six human factors studies that took place during F-XI LDM, and give a summary of their results, where available. We also present a meta-study, which examined the impact of the human-factors research itself on crew schedule and workload. Based on this experience, we offer some lessons learnt: some aspects (perceived risk and crew motivation, for example) of analogue missions must be realistic for study results to be valid; human factors studies are time-consuming, and should be fully integrated into crew schedules; and crew-ground communication and collaboration under long-term exploration conditions can present serious challenges.
AB - Human factors research is a critical element of space exploration as it provides insight into a crew's performance, psychology and interpersonal relationships. Understanding the way humans work in space-exploration analogue environments permits the development and testing of countermeasures for and responses to potential hazardous situations, and can thus help improve mission efficiency and safety. Analogue missions, such as the one described here, have plausible mission constraints and operational scenarios, similar to those that a real Mars crew would experience. Long duration analogue studies, such as those being conducted at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) on Devon Island, Canada, offer an opportunity to study mission operations and human factors in a semi-realistic environment, and contribute to the design of missions to explore the Moon and Mars. The FMARS XI Long Duration Mission (F-XI LDM) was, at four months, the longest designed analogue Mars mission conducted to date, and thus provides a unique insight into human factors issues for long-duration space exploration. Here, we describe the six human factors studies that took place during F-XI LDM, and give a summary of their results, where available. We also present a meta-study, which examined the impact of the human-factors research itself on crew schedule and workload. Based on this experience, we offer some lessons learnt: some aspects (perceived risk and crew motivation, for example) of analogue missions must be realistic for study results to be valid; human factors studies are time-consuming, and should be fully integrated into crew schedules; and crew-ground communication and collaboration under long-term exploration conditions can present serious challenges.
KW - Analogue environments
KW - Extreme environments
KW - Human factors
KW - Human space exploration
KW - Mars
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U2 - 10.1016/j.pss.2010.03.001
DO - 10.1016/j.pss.2010.03.001
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:77953292700
SN - 0032-0633
VL - 58
SP - 994
EP - 1006
JO - Planetary and Space Science
JF - Planetary and Space Science
IS - 7-8
ER -