Information and communication technology needs for distributed communication and coordination during expedition-class spaceflight.

Abstract

AO-lU. Expedition-class missions are distinct from historical human presence in space in ways that significantly affect information flow and information technology designs for such missions. The centrality of Mission Control in these missions is challenged by the distances, associated communication delays, and durations of expeditions, all of which require crews to have more local resources available to manage on-board situations. The author's current research investigates how ground controllers effectively allocate communications bandwidth, cognitive resources, and knowledge sharing skills during time critical routine and non-routine situations. The research focus is on team-based information and communication technology (ICT) use to provide recommendations for improvements to support adaptive bandwidth allocations and improved sharing of data and knowledge in Mission Control contexts. In order to further improve communication and coordination between controllers and crew, additional ICT support resources will be needed to provide shared context knowledge and dynamic assessment of costs and benefits for accessing local information vs. remote expertise. Crew members will have critical needs to understand the goals, intentions, and situational constraints associated with mission information resources in order to use them most effectively in conditions where ground-based expertise is insufficient or requires more time to access and coordinate than local task demands permit. Results of this research will serve to improve the design and implementation of ICT systems to improve human performance capabilities and system operating tolerances for exploration missions. (Specific research data were not available at the time of publication.)