Communication Going Up, Down (Doing this Almost All Day)
Sprint 2: Secondary and Primary Research
5 weeks into the project and, whew, boy do we have a lot to share! While it feels like a land-speed record attempt done on a tricycle, we have really immersed ourselves in the problem space and are finally starting to get a grasp on what is going on, what we should pay attention to, and where to go.
In the past two weeks, we’ve had many simultaneous motions in our research, initial designs, and context gathering, ranging from “Deep-dive” meetings over Playbook, the key product for this project, to Simulated Missions using Legos (you heard that right!), as well as interviews with scientists, researchers, a previous Mission Evaluations Room subsystem manger, and even someone who trains astronauts and is an experienced CAPCOM! We got a lot to cover, so let’s dive in!
Playbook
Playbook is the key product we are working with during this project. In short, Playbook is an online app dedicated to supporting space missions under asynchronous communication. Its been extensively tested in analogous domain research, such as NEEMO and BASALT. It has a central feature of a Timeline, something similar to a calendar with all of your events on it, but for the whole crew that is in space, planned down to the minute in some cases (see below!). Here crew reads information about their tasks for the day and updates MCC on their status throughout the day.
Last Friday, we got to sit down with the NASA AMES team and ask really pointed questions about all of the various features, their purposes, design justifications, and more. Even a full hour and a half session wasn’t enough to answer all of our questions, but that is fine as we will almost always have more questions!
Next is Mission Log, which really is our little martian colonizer of this project. It is the essential chat feature for the crew and MCC, and it operates quite similarly to other chat programs like Messenger, WhatsApp, or even texting. Everything is linear, one message sent or received at a time. Users on either side can specifically “Copy” a message, which refers to acknowledging or saying “I understand that message”, which comes from Radio procedures and practices. These points are quite common in communication apps these days but may take on a different meaning in asynchronous communication, which we’ll explain later. Below is a diagram of our understanding of where Playbook’s role is within space async comms.
Interviews
We’ll keep this short, as we are still in the middle of this process, but we were fortunate to be put in contact with a large set of SMEs, ranging from researchers who utilize fMRI and EEG scans, to those that design training programs for astronauts going to space. Their wealth of experience is absolutely astounding! Every interview we feel that we get closer to a refined direction for our problem space, yet somehow leave with more, though pointed, questions.
Some high-level takeaways so far:
- Asynchronous communication, even as small as a 2-minute delay, absolutely changes the perspective of almost every aspect of the mission in space.
- The crew autonomy and specific skills/knowledge (such as being a geologist) take a much higher priority as the delay increases. Without constant and frequent communication from ground, the crew needs to be able to handle new and differing situations quickly, while still remaining on-task and working towards high-priority safety and science tasks.
- Science tasks are paramount in all space missions, and every action has to take into account how it will affect “collecting science” and advancing knowledge (just behind safety concerns — Safety is always #1).
- Communication delay impacts not only logistical and operational matters but also psychological or cognitive matters. Keeping this in mind will aid us in keeping the user centered at all times.
- As is in the current times of ISS and Shuttle space work, trust between crew, MCC, and the planning team is crucial to maintaining morale and efficiency, and there are many factors that can play into that trust.
More information on our interviews to come soon! There’s a lot of information to wade through, and 20+ interviews takes some time 😀
Simulated Missions (With Legos!)
Alright alright alright, bear with me on this. My parents didn’t really believe me when I told them we’d be using Legos to test hypotheses for async. comms. for space travel, but it really does connect together really well from our current research standpoint.
How do we test our hypothesis of what might or might not work in this problem space when we cannot:
- Have easy access to astronauts and MCC staff?
- Test in-situ on the Mars or Lunar surface?
- Replicate possibly life-endangering situations?
Well, we turn to the next best option, which is testing similar types of tasks and variables here on Earth. Rather importantly, NASA and many companies or other domains do this work all the time — it's called testing in an Analogous Domain. This means a space that is similar in some aspects of the real-deal, but not all. This way we can save money (by not testing real-time in space) and stay safe.
Our simulated mission is a playground (no pun intended) and research space for our prototypes and variables or hypotheses of interest. If we want to learn how MCC staff combine their skills and mental effort to transmit messages to direct a crew to complete a step-wise project? Legos work wonderfully!
In this scenario, we put ourselves between two groups of people, one is a “crew” that is co-located, and one is an “MCC” that is remote. Here we act as a communication tool, which is where Mission Log sits in real-life. Here we can control the delay, control the visual aspect of the messages that either party sees, or test other things like training protocols, communication instructions, etc.
We tested this last last week internally, and well, it was a blast! We learned so many things just by throwing ourselves into the situation. After another test this past weekend with more rigorous protocols, measures, and procedures, we are really starting to understand what the situation is like for crew and MCC, at least in the context of a semi-planned and structured task environment.
As we iterate on this simulated mission, we are looking to change and test different ideas and assumptions to work towards a closer and closer vision of what the “real deal” looks like. This might include having participants that are already a team in some fashion with in-depth training and teamwork, creating prototypes to rethink the way these teams should communicate, or defining tasks and scenarios that are more accurate to real-life scenarios for space travel.
Pretotype
Pretotype != Prototype, yet Pretotype == Prototype (If this is confusing, don’t worry! We were too when we first approached this idea). Part of the beginning stages of research is to test our assumptions and initial learnings, to see if we are on the right track. This action of testing ideas and assumptions can help us triangulate data and insights, to ensure that we are dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s at the right place and time. This brings us to pretotypes (or prototypes, they are the same thing, for all intents and purposes) — which are models or sketches of our ideas and assumptions in a testable format. This can mean a physical product or a psychological mindset, as long as it can be tested with users in some fashion.
Some initial insights from our simulated mission include:
- Messages get outdated quickly even with a 2 minute time delay.
- Waiting for communication is stressful for both MCC and crew.
- Teams that were most successful “chunked” important information (i.e. sent messages with a lot of content at once).
- Crew will not sit idly by for MCC’s instructions. They are eager to try new things and solve problems on their own.
- MCC may delegate and separate tasks before coming together to send messages, similar to distributed networks.
Over time, we have been brainstorming and collecting a set of questions to answer, and hypotheses/assumptions to test in three categories: How the current playbook is set up, the effectiveness of alternative interactions or designs, as well as topics outside the interface. Some important or particularly relevant ones we are aiming to test in the coming weeks are:
- Modifying message order to “as-sent” format with indicators to prevent buried messages
- Message threads for separate conversations
- Simple buttons/indicators for read, acknowledgment, copy, task in progress, task complete, etc.
- A system for indicating and predicting expected timing for messages
Literature! 📚
No research project is complete without a look into previous work. To work smarter instead of harder, it’s important to understand what has already been done in space, so we can save time testing things that others have already done.
The team, in particular Isabel, has been compiling and slowly tackling papers over the past two weeks, almost 40 in total! Ranging from telesurgery and medical applications, to ISS experiments and limnology reports (that’s a fun one!), we are covering many aspects of the ~space~ to ensure that we have a firm understanding of what works and what doesn’t from previous researchers and pioneers. This, in combination with many interviews and our experimental simulated mission, helps us address the many questions we have from several perspectives to drive findings and push our understanding forward so that when it comes to pin-point a problem to address, we are ready and focused.
Chronos Communication!
Oh my, there are so many cool things happening real-time in space these days! Did you know another rover has landed on the Mars surface? It’s called Perseverance. Did you know that it is sending high-quality images back to Earth? They are BEAUTIFUL! Check out the photos and updates HERE.
If you are curious about building Legos with us, definitely check out the one we’ve been using for our simulated missions HERE.
Lastly, if you are needing a little light-hearted yet mostly-scientific podcast, The Habitat is fantastic. 6 volunteers spent a year in a single habitat on a remote mountain in Hawaii, in a study of analogous domains for NASA and preparing for Mars. The crew recorded their daily adventures, and let me tell ya, it's got some drama AND science, and it's a great listen! Check it out on Spotify!
Anyways, that’s all we got for ya! A bunch more research is coming our way (and your way) soon, and we’ll certainly have fun things to share in our next Sprint.
Signing off for now,
Chronos
Chronos Acronym Dictionary
ARC: Ames Research Center
CAPCOM: Capsule Communicator
CDR: Commander
EVA: Extra-Vehicular Activity
F/C: Flight Controller
IVA: Intra-Vehicular Activity
HERA: Human Exploration Research Analog
MCC: Mission Control Center
MSCI: Mission Scientist
NEEMO: NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operation
SME: Subject Matter Experts
Opinions expressed are solely our own and do not represent the views or opinions of The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
