Towards Information Coordination and Reduced Team Size in Space Flight Mission Operations

Abstract

Teamwork and task coordination is essential in spaceflight mission operations for organizations such as NASA. However, future operational requirements in the Constellation Program suggest a need to reduce fulltime mission operations staffing. Technology to achieve these goals must focus on supporting operator teamwork and team coordination, helping increase knowledge sharing between flight controllers. Several problems will be faced in the transition to a smaller flight controller team size. Many of these problems can be mitigated by augmenting flight data and controller training by adding context, integration, aggregation, and projection of vehicle state and trend data. Increased sharing of context and operational horizons of flight data can more effectively support flight controllers during sensemaking, decision making, and coordination and handoff tasks.