Extravehicular activity operations concepts under communication latency and bandwidth constraints

Abstract

The Biologic Analog Science Associated with Lava Terrains (BASALT) project is a multi-year program dedicated to iteratively develop, implement, and evaluate concepts of operations (ConOps) and supporting capabilities intended to enable and enhance human scientific exploration of Mars. This paper describes the planning, execution, and initial results from the first field deployment, referred to as BASALT-1, which consisted of a series of ten simulated extravehicular activities on volcanic flows in Idaho's Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. The ConOps and capabilities deployed and tested during BASALT-1 were based on previous NASA trade studies and analog testing. Our primary research question was whether those ConOps and capabilities work acceptably when performing real (non-simulated) biological and geological scientific exploration under four different Mars-to-Earth communication conditions: 5 and 15 min one-way light time communication latencies and low (0.512 Mb/s uplink, 1.54 Mb/s downlink) and high (5.0 Mb/s uplink, 10.0 Mb/s downlink) bandwidth conditions, which represent two alternative technical communication capabilities currently proposed for future human exploration missions. The synthesized results, based on objective and subjective measures, from BASALT-1 established preliminary findings that the baseline ConOp, software systems, and communication protocols were scientifically and operationally acceptable with minor improvements desired by the “Mars” extravehicular and intravehicular crewmembers. However, unacceptable components of the ConOps and required improvements were identified by the “Earth” Mission Support Center. These data provide a basis for guiding and prioritizing capability development for future BASALT deployments and, ultimately, future human exploration missions.