Human Systems Integration Division @ NASA Ames

Future deep space exploration missions will require small crews to act with greater autonomy than in present or past missions. Limited communications (e.g., bandwidth, latency, etc.), lean sparing and re-supply, and delayed evacuation opportunities all reduce the level and speed of ground support. In times of safety critical operations-especially when anomalies or off-nominal conditions occur-the crew will have to independently and adequately respond to avert potentially severe outcomes. It will not always be sufficient or even possible to 'safe the system' and then wait upon ground intervention.

A Human-Systems Integration Architecture (HSIA) is a construct to describe the communication, coordination, and cooperation between humans and cyber-physical systems that must occur in order to accomplish an operation or mission, including managing critical events. The current HSIA for the ISS is ground-based and manpower-intensive, relying on many engineers and operators with broad and deep expertise; large, distributed datasets; and expansive analytical and computing power. While successful for near earth exploration, this model is not viable for long-term missions to the moon and beyond. The challenge then is how to engineer the future HSIA to marshal the required expertise, data, and computation for the small flight crew to enable them to perform the job that has traditionally been done by a much larger and well-equipped ground crew. This will require a fundamental rethinking of crew-vehicle integration, on-board problem-solving and decision-making, and crew-ground asynchronous collaboration.