Future Research
There are many opportunities for further research into mobile execution for
planetary surface missions beyond what LuMo currently offers.
Replanning during communication blackouts
LuMo is currently a read-only mobile device. In our initial brainstorming, we explored the prospect of allowing astronauts to individually or corroboratively re-plan and propagate changes to the plan. While exploring this phase, we determined that designing an plan editing tool was outside of our project scope. Finding the best solution to allow the crew to modify the plan while mobile and without interrupting their workflow is a currently unaddressed research effort.
Completion status without interrupting workflow
Our user research suggested that communicating completion status from the field to Mission Control beyond existing verbal methods could be a useful feature. Presumably, this allows for better situational awareness among the many disparate roles involved in the team. Signaling completion status without requiring extra effort or a more complex workflow is a challenging problem to address.
Space Suit and Hardware constraints in planetary environments
As a prototype and proof of concept, our device is obviously not optimal for immediate use on planetary exploration. While we developed a device that can be mounted on an astronaut’s arm, we are not human factors nor ergonom- ics specialists and have not extensively designed or tested the device in that aspect. Providing the best industrial design and hardware specifications suitable for space missions for the device is another interesting area that warrants further investigation.
