Human Factors Engineering Activities for Past, Present and Future Manned Space Habitats

Space is an extreme and hostile environment for human life and launching the man out of the Earth’s gravity, keeping him safe and functional in space, entails a lot of work and money. Human spaceflights represent a techno-logical challenge and the design and implementation of manned space habitats and work environment require knowledge and expertise to create habitats for mission scenarios that, for the future space missions, are not currently well known. The present International Space Station (ISS) is born on the experiences matured on the heritage of past space stations (Salyut, Skylab, Mir). The design solutions implemented on the ISS are therefore based on Human Factors Engineering (HFE) requirements developed from past experiences. From late eighties as of today, Thales Alenia Space in Italy has developed about fifty percent of the pressurized volume of the ISS, providing the permanent modules Node 2, Node 3, Cupola, Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), Columbus and the logistic Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM), Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV), Cygnus. In all these modules Thales Alenia Space in Italy implemented HFE activities based on a human-centered design approach (driving the design, providing analysis, evaluation and usability verification of crew interfaces for work areas and equipment) aimed to guarantee a safe performance of all the on board crew operations, including displays and controls, workstation systems or evaluation of the entire spacecraft cabin or module habitable volume. The future of space exploration will passes through: (1) the extension of life of the ISS until 2024, exploiting it as test bench for future exploration missions and then as private and commercial orbital infrastructures; (2) the Chinese Space Station, that started its life in 2011 and will reach its full operability around 2022; (3) new commercial and independent stations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and then from LEO to (4) Cislunar and deep space stations, including planetary outposts (Moon and Mars). This paper describes how the HFE activities have been performed for the ISS manned modules orbiting around the Earth and, thanks to the experience gained on the ISS, how they may be developed to physically and psychologically counteract the effects of a long stay period in space to suit future long duration spaceflights.