Design and Evaluation of an Exploration Assistant for Human Deep Space Risk Mitigation.

This paper describes the development of a Virtual Camera (VC) system to improve astronaut and mission operations situation awareness while exploring other planetary bodies. It is claimed that the advanced interaction media capability of the VC can improve situation awareness as the distribution of human space exploration roles change in deep space exploration. It can minimize the risk of astronauts exploring unknown reaches of the solar system with limited previous knowledge of the area under exploration. It can be thought of as a tour guide with captured expertise to aid exploration. It provides a collaborative tool so that ground-based expert knowledge can be captured and be easily assessable in the remote deep space environment. A tablet PC-based interactive database application has been developed and tested for usability and capability to improve situation awareness. The method of testing will be described as well as testing results.