Human Crew Research Articles

Agriculture for Space: People and Places Paving the Way

AbstractAgricultural systems for space have been discussed since the works of Tsiolkovsky in the early 20thcentury. Central to the concept is the use of photosynthetic organisms and light to generate oxygen and food. Research in the area started in 1950s and 60s through the works of Jack Myers and others, who studied algae for O2production and CO2removal for the US Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Studies on algal production and controlled environment agriculture were also carried out by Russian researchers in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia beginning in 1960s including tests with human crews whose air, water, and much of their food were provided by wheat and other crops. NASA initiated its Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) Program ca. 1980 with testing focused on controlled environment production of wheat, soybean, potato, lettuce, and sweetpotato. Findings from these studies were then used to conduct tests in a 20 m2, atmospherically closed chamber located at Kennedy Space Center. Related tests with humans and crops were conducted at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the 1990s. About this same time, Japanese researchers developed a Controlled Ecological Experiment Facility (CEEF) in Aomori Prefecture to conduct closed system studies with plants, humans, animals, and waste recycling systems. CEEF had 150 m2of plant growth area, which provided a near-complete diet along with air and water regeneration for two humans and two goats. The European Space Agency MELiSSA Project began in the late 1980s and pursued ecological approaches for providing gas, water and materials recycling for space life support, and later expanded to include plant testing. A Canadian research team at the University of Guelph developed a research facility ca. 1994 for space crop research. The Canadian team eventually developed sophisticated canopy-scale hypobaric plant production chambers ca. 2000 for testing crops for space, and have since expanded their testing for a wide range of controlled environment agriculture topics. Most recently, a group at Beihang University in Beijing designed, built and tested a closed life support facility (Lunar Palace 1), which included a 69-m2agricultural module for air, water, and food production for three humans. As a result of these studies for space agriculture, novel technologies and findings have been produced; this includes the first use of light emitting diodes for growing crops, one of the first demonstrations of vertical agriculture, use of hydroponic approaches for subterranean crops like potato and sweetpotato, crop yields that surpassed reported record field yields, the ability to quantify volatile organic compound production (e.g., ethylene) from whole crop stands, innovative approaches for controlling water delivery, approaches for processing and recycling wastes back to crop production systems, and more. The theme of agriculture for space has contributed to, and benefited from terrestrial, controlled environment agriculture and will continue to do so into the future.

E&P Notes (February 2017)

E&P Notes Petroleum Engineering Schools Begin To See Enrollment Declines Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor Enrollment in US petroleum engineering programs has peaked and is on the downslide, matching the short-lived surge in the 1980s, when a generation of engineers were graduated. Lloyd Heinze, the petroleum engineering professor at Texas Tech University who compiles this annual survey, does not think the current downturn “will be as bad” as the one 3 decades ago. The big question is: Will that long trough be repeated after a decade where the industry stepped up its recruiting to hire college graduates in time for the many workers nearing retirement? That will depend on the level of industry hiring in coming years, which he said is impossible to reliably predict because hiring plans are subject to sudden changes. Four Misconceptions That Lead to Drilling Automation Failure Trent Jacobs, JPT Senior Technology Writer Drilling automation is one of the most promising emerging technologies that the oil and gas industry has to look forward to. The potential benefits span the spectrum from health and safety to lower costs and repeatable well results. But before this technology leaps from pilot to center stage, early adopters will be challenged to create new managerial strategies that improve the interaction of human crews with automated rig systems, according to one expert. “In all the projects that I have worked on, what I have found is that the issues involving people were much bigger than the technical issues,” said Bill Koederitz, chief technology officer at GK Plus Innovations, during a presentation at a recent SPE Gulf Coast Section event. Commercial GTL Project Opens in Southeast Texas Stephen Whitfield, Staff Writer Infra Technology, a company specializing in the development of synthetic fuels from natural gas, coal, and biomass, opened the first completed small-scale commercial gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in the state of Texas. Located in Wharton, a small town 60 miles southwest of Houston, the plant will produce synthetic crude oil from natural and associated gas. The Wharton plant is Infra’s first plant in the US. The company has been operating pilot plants in Russia for the past 7 years. Modularly constructed, the plant utilizes GTL technology based on the Fischer-Tropsch process, where hydro-carbons are created through a series of chemical reactions. The plant will operate in two stages. The first stage involves the production of synthesis gas (syngas) through a reformer that converts solid fuel into gaseous reactants. The technology processes feedgas with varying density, from dry methane to heavy gases. Energy Policy Uncertain in the Wake of Brexit Referendum Stephen Whitfield, Staff Writer With an uncertain future spawning from the Brexit referendum, the British government is seeking to maintain as much consistency in its energy policy as possible. A representative from the British Consulate of Houston said there will be changes to the way goods, services, and people move from the UK to the EU, and while very few concrete statements can be made about how Brexit will impact the oil and gas industry, investment in Britain’s offshore and onshore assets will be critical for the country moving forward. In a presentation hosted by the SPE Gulf Coast Section’s International Study Group, Cynthia Conner examined the potential challenges and opportunities facing the oil and gas industry in the wake of Brexit. Conner is a senior policy lead at the British Consulate of Houston and a member of the Global and Economic Policy Group at the British Embassy in Washington, DC.

Resilient microorganisms in dust samples of the International Space Station-survival of the adaptation specialists.

BackgroundThe International Space Station (ISS) represents a unique biotope for the human crew but also for introduced microorganisms. Microbes experience selective pressures such as microgravity, desiccation, poor nutrient-availability due to cleaning, and an increased radiation level. We hypothesized that the microbial community inside the ISS is modified by adapting to these stresses.For this reason, we analyzed 8–12 years old dust samples from Russian ISS modules with major focus on the long-time surviving portion of the microbial community. We consequently assessed the cultivable microbiota of these samples in order to analyze their extremotolerant potential against desiccation, heat-shock, and clinically relevant antibiotics. In addition, we studied the bacterial and archaeal communities from the stored Russian dust samples via molecular methods (next-generation sequencing, NGS) and compared our new data with previously derived information from the US American ISS dust microbiome.ResultsWe cultivated and identified in total 85 bacterial, non-pathogenic isolates (17 different species) and 1 fungal isolate from the 8–12 year old dust samples collected in the Russian segment of the ISS. Most of these isolates exhibited robust resistance against heat-shock and clinically relevant antibiotics. Microbial 16S rRNA gene and archaeal 16S rRNA gene targeting Next Generation Sequencing showed signatures of human-associated microorganisms (Corynebacterium, Staphylococcus, Coprococcus etc.), but also specifically adapted extremotolerant microorganisms. Besides bacteria, the detection of archaeal signatures in higher abundance was striking.ConclusionsOur findings reveal (i) the occurrence of living, hardy microorganisms in archived Russian ISS dust samples, (ii) a profound resistance capacity of ISS microorganisms against environmental stresses, and (iii) the presence of archaeal signatures on board. In addition, we found indications that the microbial community in the Russian segment dust samples was different to recently reported US American ISS microbiota.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40168-016-0217-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Charged particle spectra measured during the transit to Mars with the Mars Science Laboratory Radiation Assessment Detector (MSL/RAD)

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) started its 253-day cruise to Mars on November 26, 2011. During cruise the Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), situated on board the Curiosity rover, conducted measurements of the energetic-particle radiation environment inside the spacecraft. This environment consists mainly of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), as well as secondary particles created by interactions of these GCRs with the spacecraft. The RAD measurements can serve as a proxy for the radiation environment a human crew would encounter during a transit to Mars, for a given part of the solar cycle, assuming that a crewed vehicle would have comparable shielding. The measurements of radiological quantities made by RAD are important in themselves, and, the same data set allow for detailed analysis of GCR-induced particle spectra inside the spacecraft. This provides important inputs for the evaluation of current transport models used to model the free-space (and spacecraft) radiation environment for different spacecraft shielding and different times in the solar cycle. Changes in these conditions can lead to significantly different radiation fields and, thus, potential health risks, emphasizing the need for validated transport codes. Here, we present the first measurements of charged particle fluxes inside a spacecraft during the transit from Earth to Mars. Using data obtained during the last two month of the cruise to Mars (June 11–July 14, 2012), we have derived detailed energy spectra for low-Z particles stopping in the instrument’s detectors, as well as integral fluxes for penetrating particles with higher energies. Furthermore, we analyze the temporal changes in measured proton fluxes during quiet solar periods (i.e., when no solar energetic particle events occurred) over the duration of the transit (December 9, 2011–July 14, 2012) and correlate them with changing heliospheric conditions.

Method to maintain artificial gravity during transfer maneuvers for tethered spacecraft

Artificial gravity has long been proposed to limit the harmful effects of the micro-gravity environment on human crews during mission to Mars. A tethered spacecraft spinning at 4rpm (to avoid motion sickness) provides an attractive configuration. However, if the spacecraft is required to spin down for impulsive maneuvers and then spin up for interplanetary travel, the propellant cost may be unacceptably high. This paper proposes a maneuver that is performed while the spacecraft is spinning thus avoiding additional spin-down and spin-up maneuvers. A control law is provided to achieve the required ΔV while maintaining spin rate. A hypothetical human mission from Earth to Mars is analyzed using the new maneuver which, in this example, may save over 700kg of propellant.

The Astronaut-Athlete: Optimizing Human Performance in Space.

It is well known that long-duration spaceflight results in deconditioning of neuromuscular and cardiovascular systems, leading to a decline in physical fitness. On reloading in gravitational environments, reduced fitness (e.g., aerobic capacity, muscular strength, and endurance) could impair human performance, mission success, and crew safety. The level of fitness necessary for the performance of routine and off-nominal terrestrial mission tasks remains an unanswered and pressing question for scientists and flight physicians. To mitigate fitness loss during spaceflight, resistance and aerobic exercise are the most effective countermeasure available to astronauts. Currently, 2.5 h·d, 6-7 d·wk is allotted in crew schedules for exercise to be performed on highly specialized hardware on the International Space Station (ISS). Exercise hardware provides up to 273 kg of loading capability for resistance exercise, treadmill speeds between 0.44 and 5.5 m·s, and cycle workloads from 0 and 350 W. Compared to ISS missions, future missions beyond low earth orbit will likely be accomplished with less vehicle volume and power allocated for exercise hardware. Concomitant factors, such as diet and age, will also affect the physiologic responses to exercise training (e.g., anabolic resistance) in the space environment. Research into the potential optimization of exercise countermeasures through use of dietary supplementation, and pharmaceuticals may assist in reducing physiological deconditioning during long-duration spaceflight and have the potential to enhance performance of occupationally related astronaut tasks (e.g., extravehicular activity, habitat construction, equipment repairs, planetary exploration, and emergency response).

Об одной задаче формирования программных законов управления исполнительным уровнем автономных тяжелых МРТК

Heavy vehicles are an important class of the multi-purpose mobile ground vehicles. According to an expert opinion, development of the heavy mobile robots (mobots) based on HTVs will boost the efficiency of different purpose HTVs. It should be underlined that most of the domestic and foreign mobot solutions are usually based on a remote control, when a specially trained expert uses a cable or wireless liaison to control a mobot's spatial motion and other functionalities from a control station. Thus, the individual control method, in which certain functions of a Control station operator can be delegated to the onboard control system, is nowadays of huge interest worldwide. For this reason, within a mobot, besides the remote control modes, the individual control modes can be implemented, which are carried out by the onboard control system only, without any direct involvement of a control station operator. That means formalization of the expert knowledge acquired by human crew members in the form of a set of time diagrams of the operating members' configuration. There are many works dedicated to development of the executive level control actions of small and medium autonomous mobots. However, the achieved results are almost inapplicable for development of the executive level controls for the heavy autonomous mobots. To a great extent this is due to the fact that there are many uncertainties concerning the movement process of the mobots of the aforesaid class. Such uncertainties include imperfect dynamics model of the mobot, complexity of interaction between the robot's running gear and the movement surface, etc. This article is dedicated to the software of the mobot execution level control actions in the standalone mode. Employment of the methods of the situation control and formalization of the expert knowledge made it possible to implement the software for the execution level control actions in the form of a set of coherent time diagrams showing variation of the operating members' configuration in the conditions of uncertainties.

Microbots on a fantastic voyage

In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, scientists at a U.S. laboratory shrink a submarine called Proteus and its human crew to microscopic size and then inject the vessel into an ailing scientist. Once inside, Proteus motors its way through the bloodstream and into the brain, where members of the crew don scuba gear and use a laser gun to perform delicate surgery.

MSL-RAD radiation environment measurements.

In this study, results are presented from the on-board radiation assessment detector (RAD) of Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). RAD is designed to measure the energetic particle radiation environment, which consists of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs) as well as secondary particles created by nuclear interactions of primary particles in the shielding (during cruise) or Martian soil and atmosphere (surface measurements). During the cruise, RAD collected data on space radiation from inside the craft, thus allowing for a reasonable estimation of what a human crew travelling to/from Mars might be exposed to. On the surface of Mars, RAD is shielded by the atmosphere (from above) and the planet itself (from below). RAD measures the first detailed radiation data from the surface of another planet, and they are highly relevant for planning future crewed missions. The results for radiation dose and dose equivalent (a quantity most directly related to human health risk) are presented during the cruise phase, as well as on the Martian surface. Dose and dose equivalent are dominated by the continuous GCR radiation, but several SEP events were also detected and are discussed here.

Data Collection for Disaster Response from the International Space Station

Abstract. Remotely sensed data acquired by orbital sensor systems has emerged as a vital tool to identify the extent of damage resulting from a natural disaster, as well as providing near-real time mapping support to response efforts on the ground and humanitarian aid efforts. The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique terrestrial remote sensing platform for acquiring disaster response imagery. Unlike automated remote-sensing platforms it has a human crew; is equipped with both internal and externally-mounted remote sensing instruments; and has an inclined, low-Earth orbit that provides variable views and lighting (day and night) over 90 percent of the inhabited surface of the Earth. As such, it provides a useful complement to autonomous sensor systems in higher altitude polar orbits. NASA remote sensing assets on the station began collecting International Charter, Space and Major Disasters, also known informally as the International Disaster Charter (IDC) response data in May 2012. Since the start of IDC response in 2012, and as of late March 2015, there have been 123 IDC activations; NASA sensor systems have collected data for thirty-four of these events. Of the successful data collections, eight involved two or more ISS sensor systems responding to the same event. Data has also been collected by International Partners in response to natural disasters, most notably JAXA and Roscosmos/Energia through the Urugan program.

Construction equipment activity recognition for simulation input modeling using mobile sensors and machine learning classifiers

Although activity recognition is an emerging general area of research in computer science, its potential in construction engineering and management (CEM) domain has not yet been fully investigated. Due to the complex and dynamic nature of many construction and infrastructure projects, the ability to detect and classify key activities performed in the field by various equipment and human crew can improve the quality and reliability of project decision-making and control. In particular to simulation modeling, process-level knowledge obtained as a result of activity recognition can help verify and update the input parameters of simulation models. Such input parameters include but are not limited to activity durations and precedence, resource flows, and site layout. The goal of this research is to investigate the prospect of using built-in smartphone sensors as ubiquitous multi-modal data collection and transmission nodes in order to detect detailed construction equipment activities which can ultimately contribute to the process of simulation input modeling. A case study of front-end loader activity recognition is presented to describe the methodology for action recognition and evaluate the performance of the developed system. In the designed methodology, certain key features are extracted from the collected data using accelerometer and gyroscope sensors, and a subset of the extracted features is used to train supervised machine learning classifiers. In doing so, several important technical details such as selection of discriminating features to extract, sensitivity analysis of data segmentation window size, and choice of the classifier to be trained are investigated. It is shown that the choice of the level of detail (LoD) in describing equipment actions (classes) is an important factor with major impact on the classification performance. Results also indicate that although decreasing the number of classes generally improves the classification output, considering other factors such as actions to be combined as a single activity, methodologies to extract knowledge from classified activities, computational efficiency, and end use of the classification process may as well influence one’s decision in selecting an optimal LoD in describing equipment activities (classes).

Fundamental Plant Biology Enabled by The Space Shuttle

The relationship between fundamental plant biology and space biology was especially synergistic in the era of the Space Shuttle. While all terrestrial organisms are influenced by gravity, the impact of gravity as a tropic stimulus in plants has been a topic of formal study for more than a century. And while plants were parts of early space biology payloads, it was not until the advent of the Space Shuttle that the science of plant space biology enjoyed expansion that truly enabled controlled, fundamental experiments that removed gravity from the equation. The Space Shuttle presented a science platform that provided regular science flights with dedicated plant growth hardware and crew trained in inflight plant manipulations. Part of the impetus for plant biology experiments in space was the realization that plants could be important parts of bioregenerative life support on long missions, recycling water, air, and nutrients for the human crew. However, a large part of the impetus was that the Space Shuttle enabled fundamental plant science essentially in a microgravity environment. Experiments during the Space Shuttle era produced key science insights on biological adaptation to spaceflight and especially plant growth and tropisms. In this review, we present an overview of plant science in the Space Shuttle era with an emphasis on experiments dealing with fundamental plant growth in microgravity. This review discusses general conclusions from the study of plant spaceflight biology enabled by the Space Shuttle by providing historical context and reviews of select experiments that exemplify plant space biology science.

Unmanned Air Systems: Challenge and Opportunity

The emergence, evolving role, and future potential of unmanned air systems (UAS), as influenced by historical, technological, and cultural factors, are examined from a strategic perspective. The key enabling elements of UAS functionality are firmly entrenched in the information age. Two of these basic capabilities, remote human crew interaction enabled by wireless communication and complimentary autonomous vehicle functionality, are central to understanding the evolution of these systems, as well as for assessing their future prospects. Recent research and technology developments likely to shape future system capabilities and increase their operational presence include the continued increase in the use of small unmanned air vehicles in mission applications, the introduction and employment ofmultivehicle systems, and the greatly enhanced air vehicle design envelope afforded by leveraging the elimination of onboard human presence. Relevant examples in these areas, including several from the author’s personal experience, help clarify the concepts and reinforce the assertions. Despite the many technological advances that have enabled modern UAS capabilities, cultural, institutional, and infrastructure barriers, coupled with economic considerations, continue to temper their advance and constrain their operational use, especially in the commercial arena. Some specific ideas and proposals presentedmay help to eventually resolve several of these issues.

The Romantic Roots of "Blade Runner"

In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), the influential yet loose film translation of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the clash between creatures engineered in biomedical laboratories (cyborgs called replicants) and those who create them to achieve colonial ends (at the Tyrell Corporation) form the center of cinematic concern. After the replicants hijack a spaceship and kill the human crew and passengers, they return from their exile in the off-world colonies to the Earth to confront the individual genius, Dr. Eldon Tyrell, responsible for their creation. The replicants are led by Roy Batty (played by Rutger Hauer), the newest combat-model (Nexus-6) developed by the corporation for military use, and under his leadership the group has returned to force from their creator biornechanical modifications in their genetic design to overcome the engineered four-year life-span inserted to protect humanity from these physically superior yet emotionally inexperienced beings. After an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the Tyrell Corporation headquarters (a pyramid-like building that dominates the dark, despoiled environment that defines the cityscape of Los Angeles in 2019), the replicants are targeted for execution (called retirement). The agent sought to accomplish this task is Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), a retired (the term applied to those who hunt and kill replicants) who, during his investigation of the Nexus model specifications, is introduced by Dr. Tyrell to his niece Rachel (played by Sean Young). During a test designed to detect flawed empathic responses and thereby reveal replicants (the Voight-Karnpff test), Rachel is unveiled as a replicant (which Tyrell already knew and through whom he sought to measure the validity of the test itself). After Rachel's status as a replicant is revealed, Deckard also learns that, unlike other replicants, she does not have a terminal lifespan engineered into her genetic composition, arid across the opening half of the film the blade runner falls in love with her, following her abandonment by Tyrell. This human-replicant emotive bond manifests a form of hybridized love and becomes a crucial plot device for the film; Rachel later intervenes on behalf of Deckard, saving his life by killing another replicant named Leon (played by Brion James), who had already attempted to kill another blade runner during an earlier Voight-Kampff test following his penetration of the Tyrell Corporation maintenance personnel. The hybridized bond of love also serves as a unifying element at the level of symbolic relations in the film and plays a determining role in the tragicomic resolution to conclude Scott's exploration of the continued relevance of high Romanticism for postmodernism. The clash at the root of this plot between creatures returning to their creator to petition for intervention to improve their existential state resembles Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, in which the creature created and abandoned by Victor Frankenstein kills those most loved by him, then pleads with him for a mate to end his isolation, and is hunted in turn by the scientist across the barren wastes of the arctic. The plot of the film, however, also pays homage to another dimension of the Romantic era associated with both Mary and Percy Shelley, as well as its less well-known evocation by William Blake--the core of the Promethean myth and its adaptation in Blake's America, A Prophecy, in Mary's Frankenstein, and in Percy's Prometheus Unbound. While the opening of Blade Runner emphasizes the Frankenstein myth and its themes, the conclusion of the film just as clearly operates in a promethean dimension where will (for vengeance) is overcome by love (of all that lives). The setting and symbolism against which the passage from hate to love of the postmodern Prometheus occurs should also resonate with any audience remotely familiar with Romantic aesthetics, since both features reflect the lingering influence of the gothic and the sublime. …

Estimates of Radiation Exposures for Human Crews in Deep Space from the January 15, 2005, Solar Energetic Particle Event Using the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module

The Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module (EMMREM) is a numerical model for characterizing the time-dependent radiation environment in the Earth-Moon-Mars and interplanetary space environments. In this work we demonstrate the capabilities of the module for performing analyses of time-dependent exposures from solar energetic particle (SEP) events near Earth and Mars by calculating time-dependent dose rates, dose equivalent rates, and accumulated dose and accumulated dose equivalents for surrogates of the skin and the blood forming organs (BFOs) of crew members shielded by as much as 10 g/cm2 of aluminum shielding for the January 15, 2005, SEP event. The motivation for the development of EMMREM is the need to better understand the radiation hazards in deep space and near Earth and other planetary bodies, in near real time in support of possible future space exploration by manned and unmanned spacecraft. Characterizing the radiation environment for different locations on and close to Earth for SEP events is fairly well developed. However, estimating the probable radiation environment near Mars and other locations throughout the solar system is not currently supported for SEP events. Such capability is critical for future human exploration of the Moon and Mars in the upcoming decades. The calculated doses for the skin and BFO surrogates are compared with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s short-term permissible exposure limits.

Editorial: special issue on space robotics

Outer space is a harsh environment, with extreme temperatures, vacuum, and intense cosmic radiation. The additional challenges ofmaneuvering inmicro gravity aswell as the requisite travel and communication across great distances make human access to space very difficult and limited. Thus, the application of intelligent robotics technology for outer space exploration is considered an important field. Robotics technology covers a large area of potential applications, from manipulation in the Earth’s orbit to locomotion on remote planets and from fully autonomous systems to human-inthe-loop systems for crew assistance. This special issue of the Springer Journal of Intelligent Service Robotics on Space Robotics seeks to present the latest developments in this exciting field of robotics research, in particular, addressing the issues of mathematical models for unique physics in both space free-floating robots and surface mobile robots, effective architectures for human crew assistance in complex mission scenarios, and specific implementation in hardware and software systems for ground-based verification. This special issue contains four peer-reviewed papers covering the exciting activities in the field of robotics applied in the orbital and planetary environments. In Nanos and Papadopoulos, mathematical models are investigated for a unique manipulator control on the use of free-floating space robots, where the presence of angular momentum influences on the behavior of the systems in orbital microgravity environment. In Ding, Deng, Gao, Nagatani and Yoshida, a

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

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.

The Use of Prognostic Health Management for Autonomous Unmanned Air Systems

Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) show great promise for a range of civilian applications, especially „dull, dirty or dangerous‟ missions such as air-sea rescue, coastal and border surveillance, fisheries protection and disaster relief. As the demand for autonomy increases, the importance of correctly identifying and responding to faults becomes more apparent, as fully autonomous systems must base their decisions solely upon the sensors readings they receive – as there is no human on board. A UAS must be capable of performing all the functions that would be expected from a human pilot, including reasoning about faults and making decisions about how to best mitigate their consequences, given the larger context of the overall mission. As these autonomous techniques are developed their benefits can also be realised in non-autonomous systems, as realtime aids to human operators or crew. This paper proposes a novel approach to PHM that combines advanced Functional Failure Mode Analysis with a reasoning system, to provide effective PHM for autonomous systems and improved diagnosis capability for manned aircraft.

The Autonomous Maritime Navigation (AMN) project: Field tests, autonomous and cooperative behaviors, data fusion, sensors, and vehicles

AbstractMany small boat operations can be considered in the categories of “dull, dirty, or dangerous” jobs that are appropriate for automation. Dull jobs include long‐range missions or surveillance tasks that can cause physical or mental fatigue in the crew. In addition, operational considerations may limit a human operator's time, such as exposure to heat or cold or union rules on maximum hours per day or job. The marine environment can be a dirty one as well, with wind‐driven salt spray damaging unprotected eyes. And military operations such as riverine patrol or interception of potentially hostile craft can be dangerous for a human crew. Robotic systems allowing autonomous small boat operations can be a good match by providing rugged systems that keep sailors out of harm's way and also display “digital acuity” in that their sensors will be as efficient in their first hour of patrolling as in their last. This paper describes work done to build and test an autonomy system allowing several different boats to perform significant missions both by themselves and in cooperative modes. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Time-dependent estimates of organ dose and dose equivalent rates for human crews in deep space from the 26 October 2003 solar energetic particle event (Halloween event) using the Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module

[1] The Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module is being developed for use by a broad spectrum of researchers to predict energetic particle intensities and radiation exposures at any location in deep space. In this work we demonstrate the capabilities of the module for performing analyses of time-dependent exposures from solar energetic particle events at various locations in space by calculating cumulative dose and dose equivalent, and their time rates of change, for the skin and bone marrow of crew members shielded by as much as 10 g/cm2 of aluminum shielding for the Halloween events of late October 2003.