CREWS: Crew Recommender for Effective Work in Space
Collaborators
Dr. Noshir Contractor, SONIC lab, Northwestern University (Principal investigator)
Dr. Leslie DeChurch, ATLAS lab, Northwestern University (co-Principal investigator)
Summary
Future space exploration missions (e.g., mission to Mars) will be characterized by extended periods of isolation and confinement with a small team living and working in a constrained environment. Due to communication constraints caused by the extreme distances involved, crews sent on these missions will need to operate under a much greater level of autonomy than current spaceflight crews on ISS missions.
We are working to identify psychological and psychosocial factors, measures, and combinations thereof that can be used to compose highly effective crews for autonomous, long duration and/or long-distance exploration missions. This 3-year project (2015-2018) includes the creation of a predictive composition algorithm that can be used to inform the staffing of future space exploration crews, and be used to identify the training needs or countermeasures for a particular crew.