European Contribution to Human Aspect Investigations for Future Planetary Habitat Definition Studies: Field Tests at MDRS on Crew Time Utilisation and Habitat Interfaces

Abstract

Human factors are a dominant aspect in space missions, which may strongly influence work results and efficiency. To assess their impact on future long term space missions and to attempt a general quantification, the environmental and technical conditions to which astronauts may be confronted need to be reproduced as closely as possible. Among the stressors that occur during space missions, limited resources, limited social interactions, long term living and working in confined and isolated areas are among the most important for future planetary exploration. The European Space Agency (ESA) has a strong interest in obtaining data and insights in human aspects to prepare for future studies on the definition of future Lunar and Martian planetary habitats. In this frame, ESA’s Directorate of Human Space Flight was associated to the EuroGeoMars campaign conducted by the Crews 76 and 77 in February 2009 in The Mars Society’s ‘Mars Desert Research Station’ (MDRS) in the Desert of Utah. The EuroGeoMars Campaign lasted 5 weeks and encompassed two groups of experiments, on human crew related aspects and field experiments in geology, biology and astronomy/astrophysics. The human crew related aspects covered (1) crew time organization in a planetary habitat, (2) an evaluation of the different functions and interfaces of this habitat, (3) an evaluation of man–machine interfaces of science and technical equipment. Several forms and questionnaires were filled in by all crew members: time and location evaluation sheets and two series of questionnaires. In addition, the crew participated in another on-going food study where the type of food was imposed and crew impressions were collected via questionnaires. The paper recalls the objectives of the human crew related experiments of the EuroGeoMars project and presents the first results of these field investigations. Some recommendations and lessons learnt will be presented and used as first inputs for future planetary habitat definition studies.