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hi welcome to building 220 at the

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johnson space center where we're here in

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front of the deep space habitat where

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we've got a new analog mission going on

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this week the autonomous mission

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operations test we're here talking with

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jeremy frank who is the principal

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investigator for the test actually here

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from ames research center in california

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so can you tell us a little bit about

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what autonomous mission operations means

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so

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autonomous mission operations is a

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project designed to figure out for deep

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space missions where the crew is going

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to be very very far away from the

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control center

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there will be a large time delay between

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the crew and the vehicle

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for example at mars

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the amount of time that it takes for a

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communication to get sent from the

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spacecraft back to earth could be as

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much as

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24 minutes one way

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24 minutes 24 minutes wow so

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we've never operated a space mission

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with people on board a spacecraft at a

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distance like that before

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so everybody understands that you can't

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operate a mission the same way that you

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do today

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but we don't exactly know why not so the

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autonomous mission operations project's

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purpose is to start to understand how it

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would be like to operate a spacecraft

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very far away from earth so explain it a

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little bit what you mean you say we

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don't we know we can't do it like we've

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been doing it but we're not sure why not

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why can't you just kind of on paper say

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okay here's how we're going to do it why

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is why do you need an analog test to do

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that

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so

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let's pick two things that mission

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operations does today that might be done

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very differently in the future so one of

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them is planning so

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planning means things like figuring out

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what the crew is going to do on any

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particular day it might mean deciding

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when a spacecraft is actually going to

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perform a maneuver it might mean

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operating a piece of equipment which

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means that you need to configure the

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power systems differently

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so

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planning might actually be done

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similarly today because typically you

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get a plan for an entire day or perhaps

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an entire week

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so the process of generating a plan

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sending that plan to the crew getting

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the crew up to speed on that plan

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that's not something that looks very

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different whether your spacecraft is

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at the moon or at mars

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but other things that the ground does

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quite a lot today is actually send

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commands to individual pieces of

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equipment

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so if you rely on commanding a piece of

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equipment and getting insight into

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whether that commander worked worked or

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didn't work very quickly

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that sort of thing probably can't be

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done very effectively all the way to

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mars the jet propulsion lab for example

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operates the rovers and spacecraft

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around mars by sending them a whole

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day's plan

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and letting it run

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we can't do that with individual pieces

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of equipment on board spacecraft where

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you need

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insight into what happened immediately

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so two very different facets of

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operations which might be very very

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different at different time delays okay

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so

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then you test that here on the ground

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before we're even

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anywhere close to getting ready to

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actually go why is that

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so part of the reason for that is that

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tests that are done with very very

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simple-minded simulations

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aren't going to have the complexity of a

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real spacecraft they're not even going

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to have the complexity of a real flight

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control team

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so doing it with a

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pretend spacecraft like the deep space

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habitat here is a really good way

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of experimenting with something that

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approaches the complexity of a real

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spacecraft and

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even this is not as complex as we really

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need to be testing with before we get to

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the point where we know how to build and

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operate an honest-to-god space mission

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so this is just kind of a first step

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this is a first step exactly so what

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what how are the tests actually working

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what does this first step look like so

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the way the first step works is we have

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a crew of four people who are inside our

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deep space habitat

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we then have a flight control team that

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consists of eight actual flight

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controllers

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responsible for one facet of mission

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operations so you'd have a flight

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director and a capsule communicator or

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capcom the same way that you would today

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in addition to that you would have a

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couple of people managing different

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systems you'd have a person responsible

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for building the crew's plan

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and what we then do is we simulate about

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two hours of activity

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a little bit like what you would see on

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for example the international space

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station

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what we then do is we run a repeated set

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of tests

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in each test we vary the amount of time

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between the flight control room and the

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spacecraft

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we also vary what happens

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during the mission sometimes nothing

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will happen everything will go normally

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there won't be any problems the crew

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will basically execute their day and

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you're finished

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sometimes we'll simulate a failure

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we will for example say that part of the

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power system decides not to function

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properly anymore or for example that if

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water transfer activity between two

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water tanks doesn't go the way it's

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expected to go

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and then the crew will have to decide

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how to handle that

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the flight control team will have to

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decide how to handle that

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or

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last and not least we may have a medical

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emergency and so you can imagine how

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interesting a medical emergency can be

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if you're very very far away from the

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nearest doctor

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so

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all of those things combined will

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basically tell us something about how

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emissions would run if we ran them the

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way that they were run today at these

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different time delays

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so that's the first phase of what it is

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that we're going to do that's what we're

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doing this week and that's what's

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happening this week right

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and then now in june we've got another

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week of testing plans and that'll be a

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little bit different that's exactly

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right so the difference between the

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tests that we run in may and the test

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that we run in june is this time in june

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we'll give the crews a little bit more

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authority a little bit more

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responsibility than they usually have

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and what we want to do is give them and

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the flight control team some different

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tools so for example

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today the crews don't usually plan and

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schedule their own day they're given a

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plan that they execute but they don't

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actually manipulate that plan

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so what if they had a tool that helped

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them figure out how to actually build

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their plan

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so that if things don't go well they can

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decide how to reschedule or replan their

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own activities okay so that's one

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example of the kinds of tools that we

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intend to give crew in order to help

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them do this job differently all right

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but what we will do is run exactly the

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same set of tests only with these tools

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okay in order to see whether it makes

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things better

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or worse okay and so for doing this

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you've got a crew

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like you said a couple hours at a time

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working in the deep space habitat as

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though they were in space that's right

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tell me about your crew who is that so

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we have four different crews

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each crew is led by an astronaut

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and the other three members of the crew

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are mission operations directorate

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flight controllers

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so part of the reason that we did that

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is to make sure that each crew got the

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widest range of experience possible so

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each crew will experience one of the

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time delays each of the time delays and

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in addition each crew will experience

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one of the situate each of the

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situations the normal situation a

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systems failure situation and a medical

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situation okay and so that gives you

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kind of a range of data to start looking

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at and then planning how we would

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actually