Development of Design Requirements for a Cognitive Assistant in Space Missions Beyond Low Earth Orbit

Abstract

This study describes the development of requirements for a cognitive assistant (CA) for use onboard a space vehicle/station. For missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO), delayed communication will limit mission control's ability to support the space crew in real time. During off-nominal situations, where no procedures have been developed prior to missions, crews must develop responses in real time and may increasingly rely on automation. A systematic approach was used to model the domain knowledge of the collaborative decision-making process of current space operations, extrapolate to missions beyond LEO, and develop the design requirements for a CA. Document analysis and interviews were conducted to create an abstraction hierarchy and a decision-action diagram of the cognitive functions currently performed by space crew, mission control, and onboard automation. These domain models were extrapolated to missions beyond LEO by identifying the breakpoints where current decision-making processes would break down due to increased communication delay between mission control and the space crew. Design requirements were identified for future CA systems that offer real-time decision-making support to mitigate the negative effect of limited support in off-nominal situations. The approach developed for this research can be generalized to identify the design requirements for future support systems in domains beyond space operations.

Envisioned Concept of Operations for Beyond Low-Earth Orbit: The Collaborative Decision Making Between Human and Cognitive Assistant

“…In the first phase of the study, interviews were performed to capture the functions performed by the space crew, Mission Control and on-board automation during current operations in off-nominal events. The first phase is described in deatil in Tokadlı and Dorneich 5 , and is summarized in this section. The understanding was augmented with a document analysis.…”

“…Results of the interviews and document analysis captured the domain knowledge in Abstraction Hierarchies (AHs) and a Decision Action Diagram (DAD). From these domain knowledge models, a functionality matrix and the design requirements were developed for the design of CA 5 . Building upon this work, this paper presents the proposed concept of operation to propose the collaborative decision making process for future space operations.…”

“…The gray-colored boxes were completed in the first phase and are summarized in this paper. A more detailed description of the first phase can be found in Tokadlı and Dorneich 5 . Document analysis and Interviews were performed to document current space operations and decision making processes, guidelines developed for each operation, the support systems used to respond to off-nominal events, and astronauts previous experiences in space operations.…”

“…Unlike LEO missions, off-nominal situations in long distance missions are situations where the space crew does not have support from established procedures or Mission Control's guidance to support their decision-making effort 5 . The increased communication delay would limit Mission Control's ability to provide support and guidance in generating a solution for off-nominal situations.…”

“…Functions from current operations were extrapolated to future space operations to identify the major impacts and technological requirements in off-nominal situations under long communication delays. Previous work developed a functionality matrix and design requirements of a CA system 5 . Based on the previous work, this paper discusses a future collaborative decision-making process for a proposed ConOps for space missions beyond LEO.…”