/ Overview
In order to address the problem, our team began by interviewing subject matter experts at NASA along with reading relevant papers to understand the current and future state of both synchronous and asynchronous communication in space. We then validated our understanding of user needs and exploring possible solutions with regard to delayed space communication through speed dating and simulations. Lastly, we gathered inspiration for additional features and improvements by conducting competitive analysis on communication tools and heuristic evaluation on Mission Log and Playbook.
/ Methods
To establish a foundation of knowledge about space missions and the role of communication, our team conducted subject matter expert interviews, ran a simulated experiment mission, and read through literature. Through each method, we wanted to understand synchronous communication and what areas of communication would be affected by a time delay.
Subject Matter Expert (SME) Interviews
In the world of space travel and communication, there is a massive wealth of information and knowledge that Subject Matter Experts have, both in understanding how various missions have run effectively previously (or not!), and in understanding how future missions might evolve or change crew's and MCC's needs and challenges.
Simulated Mission v1.0
To immerse ourselves in the context of the problem space with users, we created an analogous domain "Simulated Mission" to get a deeper understanding of asynchronous communication in team-based environments that are similar in key ways to what astronauts and MCC will experience. We started off by simulating a task focused on remote instruction, where our “Mission Control” participants guided the Crew on how to build a lego space shuttle using only time delayed messages.
Literature Review
To fill out our research approach and ensure we are gathering as much "state-of-the-art" research and knowledge on asynchronous communication, we conducted literature review to better understand our 6 research areas. We selected papers that provided context around analogous missions and studies to help us understand current practices for asynchronous communication as well as cognitive burden.
In the world of space travel and communication, there is a massive wealth of information and knowledge that Subject Matter Experts have, both in understanding how various missions have run effectively previously (or not!), and in understanding how future missions might evolve or change crew's and MCC's needs and challenges.
/ Key Findings
One
Tools, decision making and communication need to center around crew safety
Two
An increase in crew autonomy increases need to be nimble with the resources they have
Three
Communication tools will need to provide ample situational awareness even under time delay
Four
Crew's communication, emotional, and psychological needs to be supported while decreasing Cognitive load
Five
There needs to be a balance of providing direction and providing support (autonomy vs dependency)
Six
Text communication leads to loss of context, but can be retrieved later
Seven
There will need to be an increased amount of support for IV (intravehicular crew)
Eight
Higher levels of trust must be strived for to maintain morale and crew autonomy
Nine
Communication tool should integrate multiple modes to suit different tasks in different contexts with different time delays
/ Insights
From our first round of research, our team consolidated our findings into a few main insights.
Time delayed communication between crew and ground leads to a role shift.
Deep space missions will require the crew to act more autonomously than they do in the current state, which increases their cognitive load. This means that communication tools should minimize the cognitive burden of the crew when possible.
“The tempo [at] which decisions need to be made...can be non-conducive to large complex science teams...You've got to make split decisions with limited information.”
Communication tools need to provide information that will support, rather than overwhelm the crew's decision-making ability.
The time delay between crew and MCC on Mars missions will require communications to provide increased context and situational awareness to ensure that message comprehension is timely and accurate.
"Best case scenario, [MCC] have a helmet camera for each person and maybe a situational awareness camera [...] It's really hard to keep track of where they're at in a huge area where [the crew ] moving constantly, let alone when you add in a time delay, right? So, situational awareness is everything."
Asynchronous communication tools must provide increased context and situational awareness to ensure that message comprehension is timely and accurate.
By providing increased context and situational awareness will ensure that message comprehension is timely and accurate.
“For us in Hera, it was a sleep [deprivation] mission [...] So, if there’s 38 things on the timeline, 38 times I have to tell them (MCC) I’m not just doing that thing, but now maybe I’m in the middle, I’m saying I’m halfway done, I’m at the end. I’m checkboxing it off. 38 times 3."
Delayed communication increases emotional and psychological isolation, and human touches are needed to support morale.
As time-delay increases physical and psychological isolation of crew members, communication tools and interfaces require design elements such as microinteractions that will better convey emotions, increase trust, and support morale.
“It’s those little things you put in messages and stuff like that, that kinda helps build the morale. ‘Cus you’re away from your family. You’re away from Earth for a long time. You start missing the things like going to [your] favorite Mexican restaurant.”
/ Methods
We found that Playbook is currently situated and built around the current state of space operations. At present, missions are conducted in near synchronicity between MCC on earth and crew in space (e.g. International Space Station operations). However, for deep-space-missions, MCC won't be able to communicate with crew in real-time and Crew can't depend on MCC for support. This means that rapid support will be needed for crew.
Our goal was to imagine and test different futures of space communication. This helped us build a roadmap to the future state, and it’s in the blue sky that we can generate far-term solutions that have the potential for significant impact on mission communication.
Storyboard & Speed Dating
To validate the needs we have found through our generative research methods, we tested storyboards of potential solutions by putting them in front of SME's who have crucial experience in participating as crew in analogous domain missions as well as MCC roles. Assessing the viability of these solutions and soliciting feedback is important to confirm that we are addressing the right needs and that our potential solutions address those needs.
Simulated Mission v2.0
To corroborate data from Speed Dating on the viability of our solutions, we needed to test our ideas in the context of potential use, which pushed us to create a more thorough idea of a testing ground to use this summer. This expanded simulated mission addresses EV/IV scenario of collecting scientific evidence for ambiguous research goals in coordination with MCC. This scenario allows us to test complex and innovative ideas like AI and Automation.
Competitive Analysis
To prepare best for summer prototyping of our ideas for Playbook and Mission Log, we conducted a competitive analysis of 10 different modern, on-the-market tools for communication. This allows us to see what is currently viable, most desirable and used on the market, and what design patterns or trends simply work or don't work in communication tools. We can use this information to drive inspiration and understanding of how we might overhaul a communication interface like Mission Log.
/ Opportunity Areas
Using our findings, our team determined that positioning Playbook and Mission Log at the center of space communication and improving on a multimedia chat feature will simplify the communication process.
While we only touched the surface into the different possible futures of space communication, we found three themes.
One
To help with problem solving, message comprehension, and build situational awareness, the crew needs better context behind the messages. They need to be able to connect the dots and quickly understand critical information so that they can get back to their task.
Two
AI will have a place in the future and can play a significant role in offloading the crew's cognitive burden. However, found some participants were excited by the possibility of having an agent offload tasks but others questioned whether the AI would be able to perform these tasks accurately, and in general, were more skeptical.
Trust in the agent is key for successfully integrating AI into the workflow. Through further research, we broke down the concept of trust and discovered that in order for a user to cultivate trust and rely on an agent the agent must be:
- Perceivable
You want to know what it’s doing and what it’s capable of. - Predictable
You want to know what it’ll do before it does it. - Controllable
You need to have the final say on what it does.
Three
Playbook will need to adapt to advancing technology to support crew the way they are supported during low-earth orbit mission. This means our team needs to design for both the near-future and conceptualize the far-future ways of communicating.
We plan to bridge the gap between the current and future state of delayed space communication by creating a roadmap of features that can be implemented both near term and far term.
See how we APPROACHED our opportunity areas ⟶
site blueprint
Carnegie Mellon University
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
AMES Research Center
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
AMES Research Center