An operational approach to long-duration mission behavioral health and performance factors.

NASA's participation in nearly 10 yr of long-duration mission (LDM) training and flight confirms that these missions remain a difficult challenge for astronauts and their medical care providers. The role of the astronaut's crew surgeon is to maximize the astronaut's health throughout all phases of the LDM: preflight, in flight, and postflight. In support of the crew surgeon, the NASA-Johnson Space Center Behavioral Health and Performance Group (JSC-BHPG) has focused on four key factors that can reduce the astronaut's behavioral health and performance. These factors are defined as: sleep and circadian factors; behavioral health factors; psychological adaptation factors; and human-to-system interface (the interface between the astronaut and the mission workplace) factors. Both the crew surgeon and the JSC-BHPG must earn the crewmember's trust preflight to encourage problem identification and problem solving in these four areas. Once on orbit, the crew medical officer becomes a valuable extension of the crew surgeon and BHPG on the ground due to the crew medical officer's constant interaction with crewmembers and preflight training in these four factors. However, the crew surgeon, BHPG, and the crew medical officer need tools that will help predict, prevent, monitor, and respond to developing problems. Objective data become essential when difficult mission termination decisions must be made. The need for behavioral health and performance tool development creates an environment rich for collaboration between operational healthcare providers and researchers. These tools are also a necessary step to safely complete future, more autonomous exploration-class space missions.

Development and validation of the spaceflight cognitive assessment tool for windows (WinSCAT).

The Spaceflight Cognitive Assessment Tool for Windows (WinSCAT) was developed by an integrated product team as a tool to support medical operations at NASA Johnson Space Center and as way to monitor the neurocognitive status of space crews. It is based on 20 yr of experience in performance and cognitive testing within the U.S. Department of Defense. As a result, WinSCAT development has benefited from diverse efforts supporting its technical reliability and validation. The rationale, background, and development of WinSCAT are described, research supporting its use is summarized, and recommendations are made for its continued development.