Results for “Human Performance Improvement” — Page 51

NASA NTRS2014

Pharmacokinetic Modeling of Intranasal Scopolamine in Plasma Saliva and Urine

An intranasal gel formulation of scopolamine (INSCOP) was developed for the treatment of Space Motion Sickness. The bioavailability and pharmacokinetics (PK) were evaluated under the Food and Drug Administration guidelines for clinical trials for an Investigative New Drug (IND). The aim of this project was to develop a PK model that can predict the relationship between plasma, saliva and urinary scopolamine concentrations using data collected from the IND clinical trial with INSCOP. METHODS: Twelve healthy human subjects were administered three dose levels (0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 mg) of INSCOP. Serial blood, saliva and urine samples were collected between 5 min to 24 h after dosing and scopolamine concentrations measured by using a validated LC-MS-MS assay. Pharmacokinetic Compartmental models, using actual dosing and sampling times, were built using Phoenix (version 1.2). Model discrimination was performed, by minimizing the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC), maximizing the coefficient of determination (r²) and by comparison of the quality of fit plots. RESULTS: The best structural model to describe scopolamine disposition after INSCOP administration (minimal AIC =907.2) consisted of one compartment for plasma, saliva and urine respectively that were inter-connected with different rate constants. The estimated values of PK parameters were compiled in Table 1. The model fitting exercises revealed a nonlinear PK for scopolamine between plasma and saliva compartments for K21, Vmax and Km. CONCLUSION: PK model for INSCOP was developed and for the first time it satisfactorily predicted the PK of scopolamine in plasma, saliva and urine after INSCOP administration. Using non-linear PK yielded the best structural model to describe scopolamine disposition between plasma and saliva compartments, and inclusion of non-linear PK resulted in a significant improved model fitting. The model can be utilized to predict scopolamine plasma concentration using saliva and/or urine data that allows non-invasive assessment of pharmacotherapeutics of scopolamine in space and other remote environments without requiring blood sampling.

Wu, L.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Intraoperative echocardiographic detection of regurgitant jets after valve replacement

BACKGROUND: Paravalvular jets, documented by intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography, have prompted immediate valve explantation by others, yet the significance of these jets is unknown. METHODS: Twenty-seven patients had intraoperative transesophageal two-dimensional color Doppler echocardiography, performed to assess the number and area of regurgitant jets after valve replacement, before and after protamine. Patients were grouped by first time versus redo operation, valve position and type. RESULTS: Before protamine, 55 jets were identified (2.04+/-1.4 per patient) versus 29 jets after (1.07+/-1.2 per patient, p = 0.0002). Total jet area improved from 2.0+/-2.2 cm2 to 0.86+/-1.7 cm2 with protamine (p<0.0001). In all patients jet area decreased (average decrease, 70.7%+/-27.0%). First time and redo operations had similar improvements in jet number and area (both p>0.6). Furthermore, mitral and mechanical valves each had more jets and overall greater jet area when compared to aortic and tissue valves, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Following valve replacement, multiple jets are detected by intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography. They are more common and larger in the mitral position and with mechanical valves. Improvement occurs with reversal of anticoagulation.

Non-NASA Center↗

NASA NTRS2010

Speech Acquisition and Automatic Speech Recognition for Integrated Spacesuit Audio Systems

A voice-command human-machine interface system has been developed for spacesuit extravehicular activity (EVA) missions. A multichannel acoustic signal processing method has been created for distant speech acquisition in noisy and reverberant environments. This technology reduces noise by exploiting differences in the statistical nature of signal (i.e., speech) and noise that exists in the spatial and temporal domains. As a result, the automatic speech recognition (ASR) accuracy can be improved to the level at which crewmembers would find the speech interface useful. The developed speech human/machine interface will enable both crewmember usability and operational efficiency. It can enjoy a fast rate of data/text entry, small overall size, and can be lightweight. In addition, this design will free the hands and eyes of a suited crewmember. The system components and steps include beam forming/multi-channel noise reduction, single-channel noise reduction, speech feature extraction, feature transformation and normalization, feature compression, model adaption, ASR HMM (Hidden Markov Model) training, and ASR decoding. A state-of-the-art phoneme recognizer can obtain an accuracy rate of 65 percent when the training and testing data are free of noise. When it is used in spacesuits, the rate drops to about 33 percent. With the developed microphone array speech-processing technologies, the performance is improved and the phoneme recognition accuracy rate rises to 44 percent. The recognizer can be further improved by combining the microphone array and HMM model adaptation techniques and using speech samples collected from inside spacesuits. In addition, arithmetic complexity models for the major HMMbased ASR components were developed. They can help real-time ASR system designers select proper tasks when in the face of constraints in computational resources.

Huang, Yiteng↗

NASA NTRS2026

In-suit CO2 Washout Test System (ICWTS) for CO2 Washout Verification in Spacesuits

Since the time of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, NASA has been performing CO 2 washout verification of spacesuits with Human in the Loop (HITL) test methods. Classically, the only instrumentation both with the accuracy and response time necessary was that of external mass spectrometers or medical gas analyzers fed by a long capillary line from the oro-nasal region within the suit. The helmet CO 2 washout configuration including the challenges posed by variation of a suited human subject frequently created difficulty in capturing adequate breath by breath data. For example, a nasal cannula could be worn with reasonable comfort however it posed the following challenges: (1) impeded the test subject’s ability to do a proper Valsalva maneuver; (2) frequently provided a corrupted waveform with relative movement; (3) precluded the ability to evaluate the Flow Weighted Average (FWA) at subject interface. A mouthpiece could be used in lieu of a cannula but posed challenges as well: (1) created potential disturbances of the flow field; (2) precluded the test subject from speaking during usage; and (3) presented comfort issues limiting the duration of test points. These challenges made it impractical to use a mouthpiece for anything other than short lab ambient environment tests. Technology development and NASA investment have afforded new capabilities to address some of these measurements providing improved data collection and are implemented in the In-suit CO 2 Washout Test System (ICWTS) which provides suit inlet/outlet pressure, temperature, relative humidity, partial pressure of oxygen, partial pressure of CO 2 , and flow measurement coupled with the acquisition of the inspired PPCO 2 including the ability for FWA measurement. This test system, coupled with use of the In-suit Respiration Mannequin Assembly (IRMA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) combine to provide a full picture of the in-suit oro-nasal flow field and effectiveness of CO 2 washout in a spacesuit design.

Colin Campbell↗

NASA NTRS2026

In-suit CO 2 Washout Test System (ICWTS) for CO 2 Washout Verification in Spacesuits

Since the time of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, NASA has been performing CO 2 washout verification of spacesuits with Human in the Loop (HITL) test methods. Classically, the only instrumentation both with the accuracy and response time necessary was that of external mass spectrometers or medical gas analyzers fed by a long capillary line from the oro-nasal region within the suit. The helmet CO 2 washout configuration including the challenges posed by variation of a suited human subject frequently created difficulty in capturing adequate breath by breath data. For example, a nasal cannula could be worn with reasonable comfort however it posed the following challenges: (1) impeded the test subject’s ability to do a proper Valsalva maneuver; (2) frequently provided a corrupted waveform with relative movement; (3) precluded the ability to evaluate the Flow Weighted Average (FWA) at subject interface. A mouthpiece could be used in lieu of a cannula but posed challenges as well: (1) created potential disturbances of the flow field; (2) precluded the test subject from speaking during usage; and (3) presented comfort issues limiting the duration of test points. These challenges made it impractical to use a mouthpiece for anything other than short lab ambient environment tests. Technology development and NASA investment have afforded new capabilities to address some of these measurements providing improved data collection and are implemented in the In-suit CO 2 Washout Test System (ICWTS) which provides suit inlet/outlet pressure, temperature, relative humidity, partial pressure of oxygen, partial pressure of CO 2 , and flow measurement coupled with the acquisition of the inspired PPCO 2 including the ability for FWA measurement. This test system, coupled with use of the In-suit Respiration Mannequin Assembly (IRMA) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) combine to provide a full picture of the in-suit oro-nasal flow field and effectiveness of CO 2 washout in a spacesuit design.

Colin Campbell↗

NASA NTRS2021

Chapter 6: Evaluation of Cardiothermal Model Prediction of Simulated Lunar Extravehicular Activity

Fewer than 20 extravehicular activities were completed during the Apollo program. The lunar environment has consistent unknowns to address particularly that of suited performance in partial gravity. The moon has altered gravity that is 1/6th that of Earth’s. This study is focused to investigate validation of the regression techniques identified in subsequent chapters and look to improve predictive outcomes during simulated lunar EVA tasks. Heart rate predictions of metabolic energy expenditure are investigated to predict workload throughout simulated lunar EVA conducted in the active response gravity offload system (ARGOS) with in the NASA Mark III space suit. Heart rate variability metrics are utilized to identify periods of high workload. Continually, the lunar offload capacity is further characterized to aid in improving the cardiothermal prediction models including predictions of core temperature, skin temperature and heat storage using heart rate, metabolic rates and suit thermal data during the simulated EVA. The outcome of this model provides an application for future use in contingency predictions of energy expenditure during Lunar EVAs and provide a suite of instrumentation to predict workload during training scenarios.

Simulated EVA↗

NASA NTRS2025

A Preliminary Study on the Feasibility of Large Language Models for Detecting Micro-Behaviors Among Team Members in Space Missions

Large-language models (LLMs) have been recently used for spoken language understanding (SLU) to infer meaning and semantics from speech in tasks such as speaker intent and sentiment classification. Due to being trained on large amounts of data, and their ability to understand context and relationships between words, LLMs are competent, enabling them to generalize across tasks without requiring many task-specific training samples. This research examines the feasibility of few-shot learning in LLMs for detecting subtle, brief, and possibly unconscious interactions between team members, called ``micro-behaviors," and provides insights into the appropriate design of LLMs for this task. Our data came from 5 teams participating in a 45-day mission at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA). More specifically we used data collected from team interaction battery (TIB) tasks teams performed five times in-mission which comprise an average 1.5 hours of conversation data per day. Micro-behaviors were coded according to an adapted version of Smith & Griffins (2022) theoretical framework in terms of Violation (i.e., presence of valenced behavior, uplifting/positive or discouraging/negative), Intensity (i.e., force of behavior in terms of how uplifting or discouraging is the behavior), and Intent (i.e., motive of the behavior in terms of whether it was deliberate or unintentional). We explore the ability of LLMs to detect the presence and intensity of micro-behaviors. We examine employing and fine-tuning readily available LLMs (i.e., RoBERTa, DistilBERT), as well as prompting state-of-the-art sequence classification models (i.e., Llama-2, Llama-3). In a total of 13,058 conversational turns (17.8% uplifting, 3.3% discouraging, 75.76% neutral, 3.14% nulls), we compute the macro F1-score of the 3-way micro-behavior classification task (i.e., classifying among uplifting, discouraging, and neutral; 33% chance). Results indicate that the RoBERTa model achieves a F1-score of 36.2% (uplift: 43.3% precision (P), 15.1% recall (R); discourage: 20% P, 0.5% R). These results significantly improve when we augment the data via paraphrasing in the RoBERTa model, reaching a 41.2% macro F1-score (uplift: 37.7% P, 86.3% R; discourage: 3.5% P, 1.8% R). Finally, the Llama-2 model with 3-shot prompting yields 38% macro F1-score (uplift: 28.7% P, 20% R; discourage: 7.2% P, 18% R), which is slightly better compared to the RoBERTa model without data augmentation, highlighting the effectiveness of sequence classification models in detecting minority classes with a small sample size. Findings indicate that LLMs hold potential to detect subtle behaviors in conversations, which could be valuable in assessing team behavior in space exploration missions. Future studies will evaluate the performance of different LLM prompting strategies or fine-tuning methods.

Ankush Raut↗

NASA NTRS2023

Using Mylar-Insulated Cryopumping Panels to Improve Vacuum Level During Warm Temperature Testing at JSC's Large Thermal Vacuum Facilities

Johnson Space Center’s Space Environment Simulation Lab (SESL) has both Chamber A, the world’s largest purpose-built thermal vacuum chamber capable of creating deep space conditions, and Chamber B, the largest human rated thermal vacuum chamber. A unique design feature of these chambers is the gaseous helium cryopumping panels within the liquid nitrogen shroud. This shroud is used to bring the chamber to cryogenic temperatures while the cryopumping panels trap gasses on its surface area to create a high vacuum environment of 5*10-6 Torr. In preparation for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) flight test, a series of functionals required the chamber to run at higher temperatures, and therefore did not need active cooling from the liquid nitrogen shroud. During testing, cryopumping panels were used to mitigate contamination during this main shroud warm-up. One of the cryopumping panels in Chamber A was covered with several layers of aluminized mylar to thermally protect the zone from the warmed shroud. This strategy was effective and became part of operations during JWST testing. Currently, Chamber B has requests for both commercial and NASA space suit tests at both high and low temperatures to validate thermal models. High temperature tests could benefit from reduced heater demand with an insulated shroud while still sustaining the high vacuum environment provided by the cryopumping panels. This paper will quantitatively define the thermal loads on the panels used in previous Chamber A warm up sequences. Additionally, this report will perform thermal analyses to assess the feasibility of adding layers of aluminized mylar to the cryopumping panels of Chamber B.

Cryogenics↗

NASA NTRS1989

Application of statistical distribution theory to launch-on-time for space construction logistic support

The ability to launch-on-time and to send payloads into space has progressed dramatically since the days of the earliest missile and space programs. Causes for delay during launch, i.e., unplanned 'holds', are attributable to several sources: weather, range activities, vehicle conditions, human performance, etc. Recent developments in space program, particularly the need for highly reliable logistic support of space construction and the subsequent planned operation of space stations, large unmanned space structures, lunar and Mars bases, and the necessity of providing 'guaranteed' commercial launches have placed increased emphasis on understanding and mastering every aspect of launch vehicle operations. The Center of Space Construction has acquired historical launch vehicle data and is applying these data to the analysis of space launch vehicle logistic support of space construction. This analysis will include development of a better understanding of launch-on-time capability and simulation of required support systems for vehicle assembly and launch which are necessary to support national space program construction schedules. In this paper, the author presents actual launch data on unscheduled 'hold' distributions of various launch vehicles. The data have been supplied by industrial associate companies of the Center for Space Construction. The paper seeks to determine suitable probability models which describe these historical data and that can be used for several purposes such as: inputs to broader simulations of launch vehicle logistic space construction support processes and the determination of which launch operations sources cause the majority of the unscheduled 'holds', and hence to suggest changes which might improve launch-on-time. In particular, the paper investigates the ability of a compound distribution probability model to fit actual data, versus alternative models, and recommends the most productive avenues for future statistical work.

Morgenthaler, George W.↗

NASA NTRS2006

NASA Langley Research Center Systems Analysis & Concepts Directorate Participation in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study

The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Systems Analysis & Concepts Directorate (SACD) began studying human exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) in the year 1999. This included participation in NASA s Decadal Planning Team (DPT), the NASA Exploration Team (NExT), Space Architect studies and Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts (RASC) architecture studies that were used in formulating the new Vision for Space Exploration. In May of 2005, NASA initiated the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). The primary outputs of the ESAS activity were concepts and functional requirements for the Crewed Exploration Vehicle (CEV), its supporting launch vehicle infrastructure and identification of supporting technology requirements and investments. An exploration systems analysis capability has evolved to support these functions in the past and continues to evolve to support anticipated future needs. SACD had significant roles in supporting the ESAS study team. SACD personnel performed the liaison function between the ESAS team and the Shuttle/Station Configuration Options Team (S/SCOT), an agency-wide team charged with using the Space Shuttle to complete the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2010. The most significant of the identified issues involved the ability of the Space Shuttle system to achieve the desired number of flights in the proposed time frame. SACD with support from the Kennedy Space Center performed analysis showing that, without significant investments in improving the shuttle processing flow, that there was almost no possibility of completing the 28-flight sequence by the end of 2010. SACD performed numerous Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) trades to define top level element requirements and establish architecture propellant needs. Configuration trades were conducted to determine the impact of varying degrees of segmentation of the living capabilities of the combined descent stage, ascent stage, and other elements. The technology assessment process was developed and implemented by SACD as the ESAS architecture was refined. SACD implemented a rigorous and objective process which included (a) establishing architectural functional needs, (b) collection, synthesis and mapping of technology data, and (c) performing an objective decision analysis resulting in technology development investment recommendations. The investment recommendation provided budget, schedule, and center/program allocations to develop required technologies for the exploration architecture, as well as the identification of other investment opportunities to maximize performance and flexibility while minimizing cost and risk. A summary of the trades performed and methods utilized by SACD for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESAS) activity is presented along with how SACD is currently supporting the implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration.

Keyes, Jennifer↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Testing Specialized Fertigation Blends for Agronomic Biofortification for Spaceflight Applications

The current spaceflight diet is prepackaged and vitamins degrade over time. Plants grown in the Veggie and APH units on the ISS currently provide the astronauts with a hefty dose of vitamins and minerals, but some nutrients could be improved. Agronomic Biofortifcation of crops with fertilizers has been tested on Earth, with the successful addition of minerals and vitamin C to crops that have otherwise been deficient. We intend to test if we can replicate this in a controlled environment and expand it to nutrients that are not often present in abundance in plants. This will be done by adding fluid nutrient blends to the water supply of candidate crops for spaceflight applications. We hypothesize that fertilization of plants with nutrients that are of value to human health will have neutral to positive effect on plants, with desired nutrients present in greater abundance in treated plants than untreated plants. We intend to show this through germination percent and pace, yield of edible biomass, the growth rate, and overall development of the crop plant. For this experiment, radish microgreens were grown on mats in a controlled environment chamber in enriched CO2, with LED lighting similar to what is found in the ISS Veggie hardware. Watering was conducted once at planting with a specialized blend of ½ strength Hoagland’s hydroponic solution with additional vitamins. Preliminary results show no decrease in overall biomass production with plants grown using additional vitamin D, but additional nutrients will be tested. Future direction will be to perform nutritional analysis of plants. Test that resulting produce will be suitable for human consumption, including meeting or exceeding food safety guidelines and palatability.

Christina M Johnson↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Testing Specialized Fertigation Blends for Agronomic Biofortification for Spaceflight Applications

The current spaceflight diet is prepackaged and vitamins degrade over time. Plants grown in the Veggie and APH units on the ISS currently provide the astronauts with a hefty dose of vitamins and minerals, but some nutrients could be improved. Agronomic Biofortifcation of crops with fertilizers has been tested on Earth, with the successful addition of minerals and vitamin C to crops that have otherwise been deficient. We intend to test if we can replicate this in a controlled environment and expand it to nutrients that are not often present in abundance in plants. This will be done by adding fluid nutrient blends to the water supply of candidate crops for spaceflight applications. We hypothesize that fertilization of plants with nutrients that are of value to human health will have neutral to positive effect on plants, with desired nutrients present in greater abundance in treated plants than untreated plants. We intend to show this through germination percent and pace, yield of edible biomass, the growth rate, and overall development of the crop plant. For this experiment, radish microgreens were grown on mats in a controlled environment chamber in enriched CO2, with LED lighting similar to what is found in the ISS Veggie hardware. Watering was conducted once at planting with a specialized blend of ½ strength Hoagland’s hydroponic solution with additional vitamins. Preliminary results show no decrease in overall biomass production with plants grown using additional vitamin D, but additional nutrients will be tested. Future direction will be to perform nutritional analysis of plants. Test that resulting produce will be suitable for human consumption, including meeting or exceeding food safety guidelines and palatability.

microgreens↗

NASA NTRS2023

Using Mylar-Insulated Cryopumping Panels to Improve Vacuum Level During Warm Temperature Testing at JSCs Large Thermal Vacuum Facilities

The Johnson Space Center’s Space Environment Simulation Lab (SESL) has both Chamber A, the world’s largest purpose-built thermal vacuum chamber capable of creating deep space conditions, and Chamber B, the largest human rated thermal vacuum chamber. A unique design feature of these chambers is the gaseous helium cryopumping panels within the liquid nitrogen shroud. This shroud is used to bring the chamber to cryogenic temperatures while the cryopumping panels trap gasses using their large surface area in order to create a high vacuum environment of 5*10^-6 Torr. In preparation for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) flight test, a series of functionals required the chamber to run at higher temperatures, and therefore did not need active cooling from the liquid nitrogen shroud. During testing, cryopumping panels were used to mitigate contamination during this main shroud warm-up. One of the cryopumping panels in Chamber A was covered with several layers of aluminized mylar in order to thermally protect the zone from the warmed shroud. This strategy was effective and became part of operations during JWST testing. Currently, Chamber B has requests for both commercial and NASA space suit tests at both high and low temperatures to accurately generate thermal models. High temperature tests would greatly benefit from simultaneous shroud warming and the high vacuum environment provided by the cryopumping panels. This paper will quantitatively define the thermal loads on the panels used in previous Chamber A warm up sequences. Additionally, this report will perform a thermal analysis to judge the feasibility of adding layers of aluminized mylar to the cryopumping panels of Chamber B.

Cryogenics↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Usability of Pre-Flight Planning Interfaces for Supplemental Data Service Provider Tools to Support Uncrewed Aircraft System Traffic Management

Small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUASs) operate in low-altitude, uncontrolled airspace – where support services for their operators (UASOs) are not currently provided. NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project is identifying the potential risks and hazards to sUAS operations to provide, inform, and improve the designs of In-time Aviation Safety Management Systems (IASMS). The IASMS will include a suite of data-driven tools that compile and analyze data collected from aviation systems and environmental sources to predict hazards, and provide information to allow operators to mitigate these risks (Young et al., 2020). These risk and hazard services can be run and displayed to operators on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), as they relate to a vehicle(s)’ route of flight. These interfaces offer both a means to present hazard service output and offer an opportunity to test user understanding of the information, user decision making, and the best ways to present such data to an operator. Based on these future technologies and intended missions, it is important to investigate interface requirements and evaluate how operators might use these tools. Presenting salient and meaningful risk assessment information to operators is necessary to increase situation awareness and ultimately safety. Building on previous research (Feldman et al., 2022), a usability study comparing two GUIs was conducted to explore how individuals interacted with different styles of information displays. A series of pre-flight hazard and risk-assessment tasks were developed to evaluate participant performance using the Supplemental Data Service Provider Consolidated Dashboard and the Human Automation Team Interface System interfaces. Participants were trained to use both GUIs and their performance was analysed across different scenarios involving multiple sUASs. Performance on simple tasks and the System Usability Scale scores were reported by Feldman et al., 2023. Additional analyses and evaluations on more complex tasks (e.g., risk assessment, prioritization), workload and response times are examined in this paper.

sUAV interfaces↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Usability of Pre-flight Planning Interfaces for Supplemental Data Service Provider Tools to Support Uncrewed Aircraft System Traffic Management

Small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUASs) operate in low-altitude, uncontrolled airspace – where support services for their operators (UASOs) are not currently provided. NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project is identifying the potential risks and hazards to sUAS operations to provide, inform, and improve the designs of In-time Aviation Safety Management Systems (IASMS). The IASMS will include a suite of data-driven tools that compile and analyze data collected from aviation systems and environmental sources to predict hazards, and provide information to allow operators to mitigate these risks (Young et al., 2020). These risk and hazard services can be run and displayed to operators on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), as they relate to a vehicle(s)’ route of flight. These interfaces offer both a means to present hazard service output and offer an opportunity to test user understanding of the information, user decision making, and the best ways to present such data to an operator. Based on these future technologies and intended missions, it is important to investigate interface requirements and evaluate how operators might use these tools. Presenting salient and meaningful risk assessment information to operators is necessary to increase situation awareness and ultimately safety. Building on previous research (Feldman et al., 2022), a usability study comparing two GUIs was conducted to explore how individuals interacted with different styles of information displays. A series of pre-flight hazard and risk-assessment tasks were developed to evaluate participant performance using the Supplemental Data Service Provider Consolidated Dashboard and the Human Automation Team Interface System interfaces. Participants were trained to use both GUIs and their performance was analysed across different scenarios involving multiple sUASs. Performance on simple tasks and the System Usability Scale scores were reported by Feldman et al., 2023. Additional analyses and evaluations on more complex tasks (e.g., risk assessment, prioritization), workload and response times are examined in this paper.

sUAV interfaces↗

NASA NTRS2023

Using Mylar-Insulated Cryopumping Panels to Improve Vacuum Level During Warm Temperature Testing at JSC's Large Thermal Vacuum Facilities

The Johnson Space Center’s Space Environment Simulation Lab (SESL) has both Chamber A, the world’s largest purpose-built thermal vacuum chamber capable of creating deep space conditions, and Chamber B, the largest human rated thermal vacuum chamber. A unique design feature of these chambers is the gaseous helium cryopumping panels within the liquid nitrogen shroud. This shroud is used to bring the chamber to cryogenic temperatures while the cryopumping panels trap gasses using their large surface area in order to create a high vacuum environment of 5*10^-6 Torr. In preparation for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) flight test, a series of functionals required the chamber to run at higher temperatures, and therefore did not need active cooling from the liquid nitrogen shroud. During testing, cryopumping panels were used to mitigate contamination during this main shroud warm-up. One of the cryopumping panels in Chamber A was covered with several layers of aluminized mylar in order to thermally protect the zone from the warmed shroud. This strategy was effective and became part of operations during JWST testing. Currently, Chamber B has requests for both commercial and NASA space suit tests at both high and low temperatures to accurately generate thermal models. High temperature tests would greatly benefit from simultaneous shroud warming and the high vacuum environment provided by the cryopumping panels. This paper will quantitatively define the thermal loads on the panels used in previous Chamber A warm up sequences. Additionally, this report will perform a thermal analysis to judge the feasibility of adding layers of aluminized mylar to the cryopumping panels of Chamber B.

Cryogenics↗

NASA NTRS2015

Nutrient Recovery of Plant Leachates Under Thermal, Biological, and Photocatalytic Pretreatments

Nutrient recovery has always been a problem for long distance and long-term space missions. To allow humans to man these missions, a steady source of oxygen, water, and food are necessary for survival beyond Earth's atmosphere. Plants are currently an area of interest since they are capable of providing all three resources for life sustainability. We are currently interested in nutrient recovery for future plant growth and simple aqueous leachate extractions can recover some of the nutrients. However, leaching plants also removes water-soluble organic plant wastes, which inhibits plant growth if not separated properly. To combat the issues with waste and maximize nutrient recovery, we are attempting to pre-treat the plant matter using biological, thermal, and photocatalytic methods before subjecting the solution with variable-strength acid digestion. For the biological method, the inoculums: mixed heterotrophic/nitrifying bioreactor effluent and Trichoderma vessei are used in an attempt to liberate more nutrients from the plant matter. For the thermal method, plants are subjected to varying temperatures at different retention times to determine nutrient recovery. Lastly, the photocatalytic method utilizes TiO (sub 2)'s oxidizing abilities under specific pHs and retention times to reduce organic wastes and improve nutrient gains. A final acid digestion serves to liberate nutrients even further in order to maximize recovery. So far, we have tested ideal acid digestion variables for practicality and performance in our experiments. We found that a low retention time of 10 minutes and a high acid concentration of 0.1 and 1 mole HCl were the most effective at nutrient recovery. For space travel purposes, 0.1 mole currently looks like a viable acid digestion to use since it is relatively effective and sustainable from a mass and energy balance if acid recovery can be performed on waste brines. Biological pretreatments do not look to be too effective and the thermal and photocatalytic methods may be preferred since they show a potential to recover more than 70 percent of the nutrients.

Photocatalytic↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Utilizing Gaps and Key Performance Parameters to Inform NASA Environmental Control and Life Support Capability Technology Decisions

Human spaceflight is a complex endeavor requiring multiple capabilities for transportation, crew health, scientific goals, and safe return to Earth. The difference between spaceflight proven capabilities and those needed for future exploration architectures is defined as a capability gap. Capability gaps are not technology specific. Each capability gap may be closed with a wide array of technologies that have unique benefits and challenges. Determining what a capability’s relevant and distinguishing key performance parameters (KPPs) are for a mission is critical. Mass, power, and volume are always constrained and important, but defining these in a way normalized by performance is very important. KPP definition for reliability, dormancy, and integration needs are hard to define but critical. Outside of technical considerations, the programmatic factors of the estimated time to develop the technology vs when a mission element is also a strong consideration in which technologies should be pursued. The Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLSS) capability areas include: life support, environmental monitoring, fire safety, and logistics. These capability areas are decomposed to high level gaps. While KPPs should be technology agnostic, they can be used to both compare technologies and measure progress of technology development over time. KPPs help define when the gap is closed, and the core mission objectives can be accomplished. Proposed technology improvements to enhance a capability should balance improved KPPs and against investments in other capabilities that are not yet closed. A selection of ECLSS gaps and KPPs and their formulation, current state, and how they inform capability roadmap planning are discussed.

Life Support↗