Virtual Assistant for Spacecraft Anomaly Treatment During Long-Duration Exploration Missions

Future space exploration missions beyond low earth orbit will require crews to execute complex operations and respond to off-nominal events without real-time support from Mission Control. In these environments, crews will be increasingly reliant on automated systems to assist them in completing these activities, making it essential for these systems to be implemented appropriately. As such, the Human Factors and Behavioral Performance Element (HFBP) of NASA’s Human Research Program has emphasized the need to mitigate risks of adverse outcomes due to inadequate human systems integration architecture (HSIA). This project, as part of NASA’s Human Capabilities Assessment for Autonomous Missions (HCAAM) research project, seeks to address some of these HSIA-related questions. The virtual assistant, Daphne-AT, has been deployed to measure the impact of AI virtual assistants on astronaut performance, workload, and situational awareness, with the goal of developing standards and guidelines for similar agents on future missions. In addition to lab testing, Daphne-AT has been used with NASA’s HERA campaigns (C6 and C7) to assess crew performance in anomaly response scenarios.