Future Needs for Science-Driven Geospatial and Temporal Extravehicular Activity Planning and Execution

Abstract

Future human missions to Mars are expected to emphasize scientific exploration. While recent Mars rover missions have addressed a wide range of science objectives, human extravehicular activities (EVAs), including the Apollo missions, have had limited experience with science operations. Current EVAs are carefully choreographed and guided continuously from Earth with negligible delay in communications between crew and flight controllers. Future crews on Mars will be expected to achieve their science objectives while operating and coordinating with a science team back on Earth under communication latency and bandwidth restrictions. The BASALT (Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains) research program conducted Mars analog science on Earth to understand the concept of operations and capabilities needed to support these new kinds of EVAs. A suite of software tools (Minerva) was used for planning and executing all BASALT EVAs, supporting text communication across communication latency, and managing the collection of operational and scientific EVA data. This paper describes the support capabilities provided by Minerva to cope with various geospatial and temporal constraints to support the planning and execution phases of the EVAs performed during the BASALT research program. The results of this work provide insights on software needs for future science-driven planetary EVAs.

A Flexible Telecommunication Architecture for Human Planetary Exploration Based on the BASALT Science-Driven Mars Analog

“…Both devices sent data through an RS-232 serial connection directly into the backpack computer. The GPS data were then incorporated into the Exploration Ground Data System (xGDS) software suite which provided route planning and real-time annotation tools to the mission support team (Marquez et al, 2019). Before each mission day, the team would plan a traverse path for the following day with candidate sample locations.…”

“…Their position and heading from the backpacks were also sent over the wireless network to a server and subsequently integrated into the Minerva mission tool suite and used by the mission support and IV teams to guide the crew members and make annotations during an EVA. The Minerva suite consisted of these software tools: xGDS, Playbook, and Surface Exploration Traverse Analysis and Navigation Tool (SEXTANT) (Marquez et al, 2019).…”

“…The encoders operated on a single channel that was configured to be the primary voice loop for the analog mission. There was direct, two-way communication between EV and IV, but only one-way from EV to the MSC (see Marquez et al, 2019, for details).…”

“…Once the connection was established, it was stable for the duration of the mission day. The software running on the wrist display included xGDS traverse planning software to show daily traverse, way points, and current location of crew member; Playbook timeline and mission log; hardware status of the EVIB; and a live view of the shoulder camera (to aid in pointing) (see Marquez et al, 2019, for details).…”

“…MILLER ET AL. data transmissions were from the analog field site to the MSC, with the exception of some information transmitted from the MSC through Playbook to the field team (see Marquez et al, 2019, for more details). For each category of data type, the average and standard deviation of the daily EVA values are shown at the bottom of the table, across all EVAs for each of the Idaho and Hawai'i deployments.…”