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communications with the space station is

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a fairly easy there's typically no delay

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talking to the crew up there but

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whenever nasa starts looking toward

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going to an asteroid or to

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mars or any of the other far out

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destinations communication gets a bit

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trickier so there's a team here at the

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johnson space center over in one of our

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buildings here that's been testing out

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different scenarios and creating an

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artificial communications delay that is

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sometimes several seconds

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sometimes several minutes trying to talk

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with the crew and figuring out exactly

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how all of that is going to work we've

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got a live report now from nasa public

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affairs officer brandy dean who is there

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working with that team brandi how are

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things going

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hi thanks josh we are as you said here

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in a building 220 at johnson space

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center where we it's currently the home

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of the autonomous mission operations

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mission that is uh similar to nemo that

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you heard about earlier one of the ways

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we simulate in this case a mission to an

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asteroid and here with us to tell us

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about it today we've got jeff maldon who

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is the simulation supervisor he's been

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the one putting in all the problems for

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the crew

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inside the deep space habitat here

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behind us to deal with thanks so much

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for joining us jeff thank you all right

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so tell us a little bit about what

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autonomous mission operations is what

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that means why we're here sure thing um

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autonomous mission operations is all

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about a testing environment to try to

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test the effect of time delay on a a

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mission and it's the interaction between

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crew and the flight control team here in

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the ground and so what we've set up is a

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dish the dish behind us the deep space

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habitat serves as our vehicle and the

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crew is on board there and we have the

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in our mission control center here on

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site we have a full flight control team

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of certified flight controllers that are

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working with the crew to execute a

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timeline and so what we set up is this

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uh this timeline to try to

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increase the interaction between the

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crew and the ground and vice versa

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where activities need to check back and

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forth there's data being transferred

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back and forth much like we do today on

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the space station and we did before on

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the shuttle as well

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we're trying to exercise

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how that how that data transfer and how

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those communications get affected as you

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increase the time delay and what kind of

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things can we do to fix it what kind of

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tools can we put in place to help us

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with maintaining situational awareness

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on the ground of where the crew is

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it's a key piece of being in flight

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controllers knowing exactly what's going

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on and being able to get ahead of it so

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you can provide information to the crew

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in a timely manner or to address issues

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that occur on the vehicle

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and likewise the crew to know

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what the

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them in terms of plan changes or actions

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in recovery situations

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if we increase the time delay it makes

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that very difficult to transfer that

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information in a timely manner and so

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what we're trying to do is we're

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increasing our time delay from as little

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as five seconds which is similar to kind

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of a you know near earth kind of

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situation up to maybe the moon and then

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as you go to 50 seconds or even as far

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as 300 second delay or five minutes

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then that's going to be a 10 minute

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round trip for a conversation to happen

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at least and so it can make things quite

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difficult so

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nasa wants to go further out into space

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but that means the further you go the

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longer it takes not only for us to get

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there but also for communication from

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the ground to get there right

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exploration is going to be more than

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just designing the vehicle it's going to

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be about

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designing and helping the flight control

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teams and the crews to be able to uh to

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handle the situations and environments

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they're going to be in so there's the

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vehicle design itself which is being

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worked by a whole group of people now

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but there's also the piece of it that

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we're working on here is to try to

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develop the ideas and the techniques to

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be able to fly those kinds of missions

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and we need to do our homework now here

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on the ground before we get there and so

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any mission doesn't matter if it's this

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deep space habitat or if it's uh any

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other vehicle that would go um beyond

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earth orbit beyond the moon to the to an

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asteroid to mars wherever it is that we

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want to go is going to have to overcome

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these kind of challenges and so we're

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starting to try to uh to figure that out

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with a real flight control team with a

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real with real crew members here with

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experience in this kind of stuff we've

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got um a blended team from um

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flight controllers established flight

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controllers with experience on shuttle

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missions uh iss mission today

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they bring all that experience to the

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table they've all been trained to be

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outstanding flight controllers and they

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all contain the skill sets that's

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required to do this job

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but what we're testing now is not so

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much that it's more the ability to apply

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those in a case where you don't have the

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same level of

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instant communication with the crew like

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we have today all of our techniques and

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all of our

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experience base in the past has always

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been on near earth or as far out as the

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moon we've never gone further than that

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and we want to go further the mission

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starts here and you come from a space

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station background right that's correct

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i'm a flight controller for the space

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station and attitude control specialist

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great um

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the the time delay for the space station

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is just fractions of a second right not

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not much at all right in terms of all

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the delays through the network and back

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up and down it would be you know

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something similar to like a one second

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delay and so it's not it's not that big

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of a deal for us we're able to have uh

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communications like we're having now

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with the crew and the capcom and um for

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the station handles that for us and

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we're able to get information up and

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down quickly

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and then also we have the ability to get

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telemetry from the from the station

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vehicle

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on the ground so we're able to see

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how the station is performing how our

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specific subsystem for example me with

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attitude control i'm able to see what

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the current orientation of the vehicle

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is um how much propellant we're using

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how you know if we're doing maneuvers or

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anything like that um

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but when we go further out the crew is

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gonna have to have a lot of this

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responsibility right some of the

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investigation here is how to transfer

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some of that responsibility back over to

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the crew and yet still maintain such a

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complex vehicle like the iss is right

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now it takes it takes the full flight

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control team to really operate the crew

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to give them the time to do the other

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things that they need to do on onboard

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the station like the science and the

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maintenance kind of tasks that they do

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so a lot of the systems of the iss are

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actually controlled from the ground and

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so we

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we do a a lot of commanding back and

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forth to the iss on a daily basis now

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when we get into a case like this where

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we're at five minutes for our commanding

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to even reach the vehicle well it's very

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difficult to maintain a tight grip of

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what you're doing when you're at that

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kind of delay so some of those

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activities may need to be transferred

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back over to a crew member and

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what the tool sets that we deploy in

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cases like there are simulations here

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we seek to try to make that job a little

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bit easier for the crew the crew's got a

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ton of things to do and they've got a

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busy timeline to execute

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it's difficult for them to execute that

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at a specialist level like we do at the

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iss

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and so what we try to do is provide

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additional data insight that helps to

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break down the system a little bit and

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helps to help them recognize issues

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performance problems and then also just

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to execute a nominal procedure to make

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sure that they don't you know aren't

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risk of making any mistakes so that that

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way if a mistake occurs it's something

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they're easy to fix and things like that

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so

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it's all to make the job smoother to

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make it easier to make it more enjoyable

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when you're there

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for the crew members on that long flight

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i mean you don't want to have to give

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them so much overhead so what we're

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trying to do is develop the kinds of

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tool sets and and test them here to see

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how they affect both the flight control

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team but also the crew do you think

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you're learning a lot so far i think

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we're learning a ton we're

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we've learned a lot about uh

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how

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voice communication needs to vary

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and and especially at the longer time

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delays we've seen a lot of

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cases where

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a call would go up from one side and

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then by the time it gets to the other

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side they've already called something

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back to us and so the conversation

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becomes out of sync it's like you're

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going to tell them to do something their

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their call is coming back the other way

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but you haven't heard it yet telling you

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they've already started that and so you

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kind of are out of sync and you're

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talking past each other um we've

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implemented some tool changes and things

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as simple as chat rooms with texting

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much like what we use here today on the

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ground um

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over a delay but it allows that that

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message to remain there you can go back

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and read it again you can even see the

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context of the message because the

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previous question would have been up

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earlier in the chat window as an example

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for for for alternatives to voice um

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and we're also looking at other data

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transfer kind of things as well so it's