Human-Systems Collaboration and Training tool for Future Human Spaceflight Mission Operations Under Time Delays

The purpose of this research was to develop a human-systems collaboration and training tool for distributed multi-team communication and problem-solving in human spaceflight operations with longer time delays. NASA’s Artemis program is slated to return human spaceflight to the Moon, where cislunar and lunar communication time delays are on the order of 3 to 14 seconds. There has yet to be a demonstration of multi-team task coordination for complex mission operations with roundtrip communication time delays greater than 2 to 3 seconds. The magnitude of cislunar / lunar time delay remains challenging for distributed teamwork and problem-solving, as is apparent in lessons learned from the Apollo program, lunar robotic missions, and analog field tests with time delays. In response to these challenges, a human-systems collaboration and training tool, entitled SCOUT for Supporting Cislunar Operations Under Time-delays, was developed using NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform for simulating the Gateway space station and its operating environment. SCOUT displays high-fidelity time and state information, sources of uncertainty, bandwidth and communication status, as well as other situation contexts for effective multi-team situation awareness, decision-making, and task coordination in both routine operations and anomaly response. Following the preliminary design phase, SCOUT was evaluated by expert users in systems integration, mission operations, and astronaut communities. Feedback provided from the experts positively evaluated the usability of SCOUT for supporting team performance in future mission operations under time delays; additional features were identified for future iterations of the tool. Other use-cases of a digital engineering tool like SCOUT were also identified including modeling and simulation for large scale system-of-systems and near-Earth space domain awareness. The contributions of this research include the process for integrating human factors, systems engineering, and spaceflight operations into human-systems collaboration and training tools, and the viability of digital engineering and simulation platforms for distributed teamwork and information sharing in mission operations under time delays.