Category: Mission Plan

Crew 301 October 20-25

Crew Members:

Jen Carver-Hunter, Commander

Alex Grab

Michael Ho

Rachel Johnson

Steve Kirsche

Jason Trump

Jen Carver-Hunter

Jen Carver-Hunter is a 5th grade teacher at a Title 1 School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Carver-Hunter is the crew commander for the Spaceward Bound Utah program at the Mars Desert Research Station. She is also an alumni member of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Teacher Innovator Institute and a current member of Space Center Houston’s SEEC Crew.

Alex Grab

Alex Grab is an education program manager at the Space Foundation, where she designs innovative STEM and entrepreneurship programs that inspire the next generation of explorers. With over a decade of experience in teaching and curriculum development, she’s passionate about hands-on learning. When not shaping future leaders, Alex enjoys hiking, snowboarding, and studying fungi as an amateur mycologist.

Michael Ho

Michael is a Science educator from Singapore. He teaches General Science to grades 7-8 students and Physics to grades 9-10 students. He was with Team A.R.E.S. (MDRS 216) back in Nov 2019. He is really happy to be back at the MDRS and looks forward to the Spaceward Bound programme.

Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson is an educator with over 18 years of experience, specializing in Spanish language, technology, and space science. Currently working as an outreach specialist for a mental health nonprofit in Colorado, she is particularly interested in the psychological effects of isolation. A lifelong sci-fi enthusiast and geology aficionado, Rachel is excited to gain hands-on experience in studying mental health in the context of space exploration while examining and collecting geological samples from Utah’s Mars-like terrain.

Steve Kirsche

Steve is an avid space enthusiast and former middle school science teacher from St. Johns, FL. He now works as a secondary science program specialist for St. Johns County School District.

Jason Trump

Jason Trump leads the education team at Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City. His responsibilities include overseeing a statewide field trip, outreach, and teacher professional development program. Jason is a Utah native who enjoys spending time outdoors and volunteering as a NASA Solar System Ambassador. He is excited to be returning for another experience at MDRS.

Martian Biology 4 (MDRS 298) Mission Plan – June 3-10, 2024

This is the fourth non-simulation mission in the Martian Biology program, which seeks to understand the biodiversity of the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) operational area, both to better support analog missions and to understand this unique biome. The crew consists of Dr. Shannon Rupert, Dr. Jordan Bimm, Samantha McBeth, Jacopo Razzauti, Olivia Drayson, and Paul Sokoloff.

In 2024, we will focus the efforts of our multiple projects at three study sites: Collie Wash (38.32626, -110.67395), the lower slopes of the Henry Mountains (38.07799, -110.91507), and the San Rafael Swell via Temple Mountain Wash (38.66577, -110.67774). Each location would be visited twice – once early in the week to deploy any traps or monitoring devices required, and again at the end of the week to retrieve the samples and/or loggers.

We will continue work on studying the plant and lichen biodiversity of the station through a collections based inventory. We will deploy trail cameras at these locations to better understand the vertebrate diversity at these locations, comparing the data with those available through citizen science platforms (i.e. iNaturalist). We will continue to sample insect diversity with a focus on mosquitos. We will continue to support research into the historical understanding of Martian analogs and astrobiology. We will collect water samples at the study sites to better understand microplastic contamination in the area.

Mission Itinerary:
Monday June 3: Afternoon trip to Collie Wash to collect deposit loggers and traps.
Tuesday, June 4: Science Day on lower slopes of Henry Mountains.
Wednesday, June 5: Science Day at Temple Mountain, San Rafael Swell.
Thursday, June 6: Return to Collie Wash, and collect at waterways along the highway.
Friday, June 7: Return to lower slopes of Henry Mountains.
Saturday, June 8: Return to Temple Mountain, San Rafael Swell.
Sunday, June 9: Flex day.
Monday, June 10: Cleanup at MDRS, mail specimens and gear from Hanksville PO, team leaves MDRS for GJ.

Paul Sokoloff

Prakruti “Pari” Raghunarayan: Crew Commander & Crew Journalist
Hi! My name is Prakruti, or you can call me Pari. I am a physics and material science major at UT and the crew’s Commander for our analog astronaut mission this rotation. I do condensed matter research with Dr. Edoardo Baldini at the University of Texas at Austin, will be at Princeton University with their Electrical Engineering Department, and will be conducting materials studies at MDRS alongside our crew members. I am very excited for this mission (especially the hikes we may get to go on!)

Avery Abramson: Executive Officer & Crew Astronomer
Hi! My name is Avery Abramson. I am a rising third-year at UT from northern Virginia, which is around thirty minutes from Washington, D.C. I enjoy acting, practicing martial arts, and singing with my piano. I am also an astronomy major who is currently pursuing research, and I will be at Seoul National University in South Korea this summer to continue my research in extragalactic cosmology!
Noah Mugan: Crew Scientist

Hi! My name is Noah Mugan, and I am a physics major at UT Austin. At MDRS, I will be studying differences in nutrient density between radishes grown in Earth soil and in analog Martian soil. Outside of MDRS, my research focuses on quantum computing!

Kristina Mannix: Health and Safety Officer & Astronomer
My name is Kristina Mannix, I am a Physics and Astronomy double major at the University of Texas at Austin. For MDRS, I am the Health and Safety Officer, I am here to patch up my fellow crew members and to ensure their safety. Additionally, I am working with Avery, the head Crew Astronomer, on the astronomy research with the Robotic Observatory and the Musk Solar Observatory. One fun fact about me is that I am doing research at UT with Dr. Scott Kravitz making a xenon time projection chamber!

Aravind Karthigeyan: Crew Chemist
Hey y’all, my name is Aravind, and I’m a physics and math double major—though, emphasis on the physics. I was selected to be the Crew Chemist for MDRS, and my job is to track radiation levels across the camp to simulate research done in an actual Martian environment. Something interesting about myself is that I lettered in varsity bowling in high school!

Rishabh Pandey: Crew Engineer
I’m Rishabh Pandey, an Electrical and Computer Engineering major and Crew Engineer at MDRS. My job is to use drones to map out the Martian surface using photogrammetry and develop deep-learning algorithms to find the fastest path from A to B in the event of a rescue mission. An interesting fact about myself is that I used to be on the Olympic development team for Water Polo.

Our Mission:
Our mission is designed to pioneer new techniques for exploring Mars and analyzing extraterrestrial materials through a simulated Martian environment. We are conducting geological research, mapping a detailed 3D mock-Martian terrain, studying the nutritional data of plants grown in mock-Martian soil, and monitoring space weather events in real time via the Musk Observatory. The overall goal is establish steps to ensure successful roundtrip travel to Mars. With MDRS and NASA, we are extending this material study to attempt to bring back rockets we launch. Essentially, a larger plan would be to use space weather patterns to optimize when we perform launches with Avery and Kristina’s work, mapping that terrain with Rishabh’s research, and finally analyzing and repurposing found materials as energy sources to essentially create rocket fuel (process called electrolysis) and figure out how we can look at vegetation and consumption on Mars, which will be a combined effort of what me, Noah, and Aravind do.

Crew 297 – JANUS I
Apr 14th – April 27th, 2024

Crew Members:

Commander and HSO: Pawel Sawicki
Executive Officer: Matthew Storch
Crew Engineer: Matthew Lynch
Crew Geologist: Sarah Lamm
GreenHab Officer: Sean Marquez
Crew Journalist & Crew Engineer: David Laude

Mission Plan:

The 297th crew at MDRS is composed of a team of seven astronauts, coming from an assortment of diverse backgrounds and careers. With over a cumulative fifteen degrees between the crew, conducting research is ingrained within the planned mission. Janus I will investigate many subdisciplines of science and engineering, specifically geological field spectroscopy, operations of nuclear power systems, developing smart sensor-based systems, and Martian-appropriate advancements in IT. While it is ideal for the PI of a research project to also be involved as a mission specialist, a la the Space Shuttle era, it is acknowledged that astronauts will need to tend to other projects and be participants themselves. As such, Janus I also involves other research projects from academia involving studies pertaining to isolated confined environments and human-robotic interaction.

Janus I, the name of this specific MDRS mission, stays in line with NASA’s tradition of naming extraterrestrial explorations after ancient mythological beings. Janus is the Roman god of duality, transitions, and beginnings – a deity appropriately aligned with the goals of MDRS.

Crew Projects:

Title: Simulated Deployment of a Nuclear Power System: Logistics and Operational Challenges
Principal Investigator: Matthew Lynch
Description: Initial mission to Mars will deploy with advanced radioisotope power systems (RPS) or fission power systems (FPS) to power in-flight needs and initial base deployment. However, the ever-expanding work-scope on Mars will dictate increasing power requirements and new reactors will be sent from earth for these power demands. Due to the hazardous nature of these materials the delivery landing site will not likely be near the Martian base. To represent this within sim, one EVA team will hide an analogous (inert) NPS, and provide an estimated GPS coordinate to a second EVA team. The second team will have the task of seeking out the NPS using varying planned search strategies. The analog reactor will also need to be brought back to the base for installation and containment. As an analog to this, an NPS site will be selected 100-500 feet from the MDRS Habitat and the inert NPS will be buried during an EVA such that only its top surface is visible.
Objectives: Locate analog FPS from a delivery landing site in the vicinity of MDRS, assuming slight deviations from the original site. Bring the NPS back to MDRS and excavate a location for it during EVA operations.
EVAs: A minimum of 4 EVAs are required, with more targeted.

Title: Advancing Planetary Mineralogical Analysis: Evaluating the Usability of Portable Gamma Ray Spectroscopy during Martian Operations
Principal Investigator: Sarah Lamm
Description: Gamma-ray spectrometry is used for mapping surveys, as these elemental amounts can be used to determine lithology and possible provenances. Furthermore, the amount of natural uranium can be a concern, as a daughter-isotope of uranium is radon. Radon gas is odorless, colorless, and radioactive, specifically an alpha particle emitter. Breathing in radon gas can cause lung cancer, and therefore a threat to astronaut’s health. This research will not only help with mapping and lithology, but also provide insight to any unrevealed risks to astronaut’s health.
Objectives: Determine the amount of natural radioactive uranium, thorium, and potassium within the adjacent areas of MDRS, through the use of a portable Gamma Ray Spectrometer.
EVAs: A minimum of 4 EVAs are required, with more targeted.

Title: A Toolset for Shared and Long-term Document Management and IT Operations
Principal Investigators: Sean Marquez & Matthew Storch
Description: The combination of text files and distributed source control is well-known to be a best practice in the management of programming-related files. Use of source code to describe highly standardized and easily maintainable computing infrastructure is another well-known best practice. It has been more recently recognized that programming-related tools and methods can be readily re-purposed to manage non-programming data, such as research data, notes, and reports. Thus, for this mission a methodology for maintaining MDRS mission data is developed that is based on marked-up plain text files and distributed source control provided in a virtual desktop environment that is defined and maintained through source code (Infrastructure-as-Code). This toolset utilizes Git (modern software development tool that solves the problem of collaboration without strong centralized dependencies), Markdown (modern non-proprietary data format), Dendron (note organization system on top of Markdown), and a Linux workspace image (provides all of the aforementioned benefits plus more to users in one convenient package, easier to maintain and support).
Objectives: Evaluate the effectiveness of WIDGIT (Workspace Image with Dendron & Git for IT) for collaborative documentation workflows. Users will use the toolset for MDRS report writing, note taking, and other appropriate activities, with allowable support from the PIs. Based on the crew’s use of the toolset, the amount of PI support required, and anecdotal sentiment amongst the crew toward the toolset, the investigators will characterize any minor or major changes required for future mission use.
EVAs: None required.

Title: MDRS IOT-Assisted Data Collection Using OSHW & OSS
Principal Investigator: Sean Marquez
Description: IoT-assisted real-time wireless data collection is a valuable tool for monitoring vitals and environmental conditions of living organisms. The use of FPrime – a flight-proven, multi-platform, open-source flight software framework with flight heritage on the Mars Ingenuity helicopter and university CubeSats, is proposed for use at MDRS. FPrime would facilitate real-time data collection and monitoring of environmental conditions (s.a., temperature, humidity, pressure, and volatile organic compounds) for plants in the GreenHab during the course of crew 297’s mission. This data collection system can be extended to either robotic or manned EVA’s. These can be deployed on a microcontroller (s.a., a Teensy 4.1) or single-board computer (s.a., a Raspberry Pi 4) wired to environmental sensors (s.a., a BME688) configured to stream data over a local network or radio transceiver (s.a., a RFM69HCW) to a laptop running the FPrime ground data system (see https://github.com/mdrs-community/fprime-baremetal-reference for reference implementation). The FPrime ground data system can be run locally from a virtual environment (see https://github.com/mdrs-community/mdrs-workspace-image/).
Rationale: Live monitoring and logging of environmental conditions is vital for sustaining the health and well-being of living organisms. Manually managing such processes can become tedious, time-consuming, and prone to human error. The need for solutions that minimize workload without being too tethered to interplanetary supply-chains becomes more evident as humanity endeavors to become multiplanetary.
Objectives: Demonstrate the use of FPrime open-source software on open-source hardware during GreenHab Operations to assuage tedious monitoring and reporting GHO duties. Develop and test the framework of a customizable and re-usable data collection methodology for use in future MDRS missions.
EVAs: None required.

Title: Use of Sonar for Measuring Water Tank Depth
Principal Investigator: David Laude
Description: Data is needed for properly planning water usage while within sim. During Mission 228, a formula to measure volume was derived using the distance from the tank opening to the water surface (without contacting the water) and carefully obtained dimensions of the static tank. This proposed research would now acquire the distance of the tank opening to the water surface via a sonar device, specifically an LV-MaxSonar. The volume can subsequently be determined by the sensor’s output signal measured with a digital voltmeter (DVM).
Objectives: Acquire a sensor output (e.g., voltage) that corresponds to the depth of water of the Hab static tank. If successful, a final step (within a future mission) would be to construct a measurement unit with numeric display, thus ensuring a contactless means to accurately measure static tank water volume
EVAs: None Required.

Title: Robot Competency Self-Assessment at MDRS
Principal Investigator: Nicholas Conlon (on Earth; CU Boulder)
Description: The main goal of this study is to understand how future astronauts In current real-world robotic applications, users rely heavily on telemetry, map data, and intuition in order to infer how competent a robot will be in a given environment. Telemetry can consist of a variety of data, however in our experiments, telemetry will include the robot’s position, heading, velocity, battery level, and other state information. Map data consists of a displayed map with iconography indicating features such as positions of the robot, waypoints, hazards, and other relevant information. This information, while valuable, can be confusing for non-expert users whose mental model of the robot’s competence is incomplete or inaccurate, tedious to follow and monitor, and can lead to poor human decision-making. Instead, this research focuses on developing more human-centered approaches to convey robot
competency.
Rationale: The interaction and "trust" between astronauts and robots on Mars will need to be well aligned for efficient EVA operations. This study will expand the research community’s understanding as to how future astronauts utilize information related to a robot’s capabilities to inform their decision-making and accomplish a given task.
Objectives: From a practical application standpoint, the experiment will record a dataset of “Google Maps” style imagery that can be used for mission planning by future crews. From a scientific standpoint, the experiment will help an understanding on how human users utilize a robot capable of communicating important information about its task competency. Data will be collected in the form of digital logs of the robot state, questionnaire responses from the crew operating the robot, and imagery to generate the dataset.
EVAs: A minimum of four 2-hour EVAs are required, with more targeted.

[title Crew biographies, photos and mission patch – April 14th]

Pawel Sawicki
Commander and Health & Safety Officer
Pawel Sawicki is currently a New Shepard Crew Capsule Test Engineer at Blue Origin, where he is responsible for the successful and safe execution and on-time completion of several major launch vehicle tests and pre-flight checks. At Blue Origin, he is also a volunteer Emergency Response Team member. Pawel earned a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his doctoral research involved computationally investigating amelioration techniques for plasma-induced radio wave blackout, which has historically plagued hypersonic vehicles. Pawel had also obtained an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from New York University. Pawel’s career has also included stints of varying capacities at NASA Ames Research Center, NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center.

Matthew Storch
Executive Officer
Matthew Storch has B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in computer science from UIUC. He has worked as a software engineer and has held various engineering management positions for 35 years He is currently acting VP Engineering and CTO of a small (30 person) company that is building a specialized physical infrastructure management product (target audience is large corporations and government institutions). Outside of work, Matthew has a long-standing passion for adventure, technical achievement and unusual experiences that has led him to becoming an airplane pilot, a gyroplane pilot, sailboat & powerboat operator, and a submersible pilot. Matthew also likes sports and physical activities which has led to running, bicycling, motorcycling, rock climbing, and, most importantly, Ultimate Frisbee, for which he has played on several teams competing at USAU national-level tournaments. Matthew has been happily married for over 30 years.

Matthew Lynch
Crew Engineer
Matt is a 4th year PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, where he studies nuclear engineering. His academic research focuses on developing novel materials for advanced nuclear reactors and extreme conditions, as well as utilizing new methods to use machine learning in assisting electron microscopy material analysis. His PhD is supported by a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO), this is his first experience as an analog astronaut. Outside of work he enjoys rock climbing with friends and hopes to climb on the Red Planet some day.

Sarah Lamm
Crew Geologist
Sarah Lamm is currently a Geology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas, focusing her research on analog materials for Mars and Ocean Worlds using Raman spectroscopy. Sarah obtained her Master’s degree from Kansas State University in 2021. During that time, she worked on developing a chemical calibration for chlorite minerals using Raman Spectroscopy, which also has implications for Mars research. During her graduate studies, Sarah also interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Origins and Habitability Lab in the summers of 2021 and 2022. In 2018, Sarah graduated from Kansas State University, with three bachelors degrees in Chemistry, Geology, and Geography. Throughout her undergraduate years, Sarah was an active member on the ChemCam Instrument Team on the Mars Curiosity Rover and spent three summers at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sean Marquez
GreenHab Officer
Sean has a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in design of mechanical systems, from the University of California, Irvine. He worked as an associate mechanical design engineer for Max Q Systems – formerly an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for the aerospace industry. In his spare time, he contributes to FPrime, an open-source flight software and embedded systems framework used on the NASA/JPL Mars Ingenuity helicopter and university CubeSATs. FPrime is currently undergoing implementation at the Mars Desert Research Station to automate monitoring of plants in the GreenHab. Sean also works with a working group with the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) and the Mach 30 Foundation to develop open standards for the medical/aerospace industry, as well as methodologies for developing open-source hardware (OSHW) like open-source software (OSS). Sean is currently studying permaculture design to develop a means to becoming multiplanetary without the need for interplanetary supply chains, using permaculture as its guiding principles.

David Laude
Crew Journalist and Crew Engineer
David Laude was present for the memorable and impressive launches of Apollo 11, the first Space Shuttle and subsequent Shuttle night launches. He also met several lunar astronauts and like many others, dreamed about space exploration. David began a lifelong passion for electronics and space technology in elementary school. With a B.S. and a M. Eng. in Electrical Engineering, he designed integrated circuits for Harris Semiconductor (now Intersil), Ford Aerospace, Ford Motor Company and Linear Technology Corporation (now Analog devices). David is currently retired from the work force and is a lifelong learner who enjoys working with talented people. He also has formal training in Anthropology and Archaeology. He is a member of The Planetary Society and a founding member of The Mars Society. His hobbies include radio controlled airplanes, electronics, musical instrument synthesizers, music composition and antique radio restoration. Utah, with its stark beauty and remote areas, is one of his favorite states. He previously served as a crew member at MDRS on Crews 80, 181, 228 and 265 in the roles of commander, executive officer and engineer.

Crew 296, MarsUCLouvain 2024, is composed of 8 members. Each of us will be conducting experiments to broaden our knowledge about Mars and space travel.
Following in the report, you will find precise descriptions of the experiments we will be conducting.
This mission will be considered successful if, first, all our members come back safely to Earth, and if we manage to conduct our experiments for the full duration of the mission.

Romain
I will be conducting two experiments.
The aim of the first experiment is to test the extent to which a device for capturing and recognizing finger-based gestures can be impacted by extreme experimental conditions, such as those found in unfamiliar, restrictive or even hostile environments for human beings.
To this end, crew members will test the TapStrap, a ring-based gesture capture devices. This test will be carried out once before the mission, then three times during the mission. The efficiency, effectiveness and subjective satisfaction of crew members in using these devices will be evaluated.
A second experiment will test the extent to which drone piloting can be impacted by the same extreme conditions. The experiment will also be repeated four times.
From the analysis of the data collected, we hope to draw lessons about the use of interactive applications in extreme conditions, using different modalities of interaction.

Maxime
Space is a dangerous and relentless, throwing challenges to everybody who dares venture into the unknown. Collecting and understanding data from an alien world is key to survival, that is why my experiment is going to be about the study of the danger of dust from Martian storms. These storms are not very well understood and the dust they pick up can be hazardous for the vital equipment such as the solar panels. I will use two weather stations that will track luminosity, air pressure, wind speed and temperature for two weeks and use my mapping skills to figure out if the environment around the MDRS is suitable for sensitive equipment or not. One of the weather stations will be stationary during the two weeks and the other will be mobile, moved each day to a new location to try and gauge the exposition to dust and wind.

Louis
An overlooked aspect of a Mars exploration mission is the selection of the landing site location. Whether it is for the initial landing, or for the establishment of a base, the chosen location must meet a lot of mission-critical criteria. Most orbital-produced topographic maps of Mars suffer from a of lack of spatial resolution. My research project will hence be focused on the production of high-fidelity topographic maps of the study area using a method known as photogrammetry, along with UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) technology.

Hippolyte
During the M.A.R.S. UCLouvain mission, team members will be confronted with an unpredictable environment. A great deal of preparation is required to cope with unexpected situations. To support the crew and help them carry out tasks and make the right decisions, I propose to use an artificial intelligence (AI) stored locally on a computer.
The AI would be trained throughout the year with mission information, such as scientific objectives, technical constraints and safety protocols. In this way, it could provide useful information and advice tailored to the specific circumstances of the mission.
AI could be used as a tool similar to ChatGPT, enabling team members to ask questions and get answers quickly and easily. It could also be used to monitor environmental conditions and report any significant changes that might affect the mission.
To take the idea a step further, I propose transforming the AI into a voice assistant using a program. This would enable team members to communicate with it without having to use a keyboard or screen, which could be particularly useful during spacewalks or in other situations where the hands are busy.

MARSISS
In the MARSISS study (2023/18DEC/530), we want to investigate various health parameters, ranging from immunity to psychology features, before, during and after simulation. These will be assessed during a two-week Martian simulation, involving group isolation and the absence of communication with the outside world. Young, healthy participants will receive a placebo or a supplementation with a probiotic, Lactobacillus helveticus (LH). This bacterial strain has been reported to have a positive influence on sleep and stress management in the scientific literature. Regarding the data and samples to be collected, stress levels will be measured through several biomarkers such as salivary cortisol and aMMP-8 levels, heart rate and heart rate variability. Body temperature and oxygen saturation, variables associated with sleep, will be recorded alongside sleep quality and quantity. The possible impact of LH on immunity will also be a focus of study. Thereby, the production of antibodies and cytokines in blood and saliva, as well as the population of immune cells present in the blood, will be studied. On top of that, we will collect urines to assess neurotransmitters related to stress levels as well as their metabolites together with faeces to determine the presence of the bacteria studied. In addition, several self-report questionnaires will be completed by participants to assess personality, perceived stress levels, daytime sleepiness, and personal satisfaction with sleep. The aim of this research is to improve our understanding of the living conditions and modifications undergoing in the human organism during exposure to the simulation environment, and to propose possible measures to improve the daily lives of those working in space before, during and after their mission(s).

Imane : Stress (urines + saliva) + faeces
Alba : Immunity (saliva and blood)
Arnaud : Sleep (physiological data + sleep questionnaires) + Stress (physiological data + urines)
Loriane : Psychology (personality questionnaire)

Crew 295 Mission Plan

We are the University of Colorado Mars In Simulated Surface Environments (MISSE) 2024 crew. Our mission is to provide interdisciplinary training to students interested in the intersections of human health, performance and medical care in an extraplanetary environment. Our students bring a broad set of experiences from military service, paramedic training, human physiology, aerospace engineering, and computer programing and are representative of future astronaut crews. This is our 5th year of running this course and we are extremely grateful to be back at MDRS to provide our students with a unique learning opportunity. This course is based around didactic lectures and simulated high fidelity EVAs where crews work in operational teams to complete simulated spaceflight goals like finding a satellite or launching a rocket. During these missions a medical contingency occurs and the crews are forced to respond and provide simulated medical care. This year we have build and included a medical module built into a trailer for the students to practice their wilderness and space medicine skills. Over the course of the week at MDRS our students learn about space through our hands on learning approach of field simulation. Prior students have listed this as their favorite class at the University of Colorado and many of them have gone on to work in human health and performance in spaceflight. We have an excellent group of students this year and are looking forward to another great week at MDRS as part of the MISSE course!

Anderson, Arian

Leanne Hirshfield
Dr. Leanne Hirshfield’s research explores the use of non-invasive brain measurement to passively classify users’ social, cognitive, and affective states in order to enhance usability testing and adaptive system design. She works primarily with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), a relatively new non-invasive brain imaging device that is safe, portable, robust to noise, which can be implemented wirelessly; making it ideal for research in human-computer interaction. The high density fNIRS equipment in Hirshfield’s lab provides rich spatio-temporal data that is well suited as input into deep neural networks and other advanced machine learning algorithms. A primary tenet of Hirshfield’s machine learning research involves building and labeling large cross-participant, cross-task fNIRS training datasets in order to build robust and generalizable models that can avoid overfitting and succeed in ecologically valid environments outside the lab.

Marta Čeko
Dr. Marta Čeko’s research explores brain mechanisms of pain and negative affect in health and disease. She combines computational modeling with neuroimaging, behavioral data and multiple types of physiological data to develop predictive and generalizable brain and physiology-based models of aversive processing and regulation.

James Crum
James is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Science. More specifically, he is a cognitive neuroscientist at SHINE Lab. He uses multimodal methods (e.g., fMRI, fNIRS, deep-learning, etc.) in ‘real-world’ and lab-based paradigms to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms supporting cognitive security (i.e., how the brain defends against information-based threats). This research is supported by the Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) Program.

Emily Doherty
Emily is a third-year PhD student in computer and cognitive science working in the SHINE Lab. Her research explores human-AI teaming using multimodal methods (non-invasive neuroimaging, natural language processing, machine learning) in varied contexts spanning from education to extreme environments. She is particularly interested in the design of equitable AI that not only enhances cognitive capabilities but also broadly serves society.

Name of person filing report: Emily Doherty
Our Crew is as follows:
Commander: Leanne Hirshfield
Crew Engineer: Marta Čeko
HSO: James Crum
Journalist: Emily Doherty

Mission Plan: Crew 294 is comprised of two research professors, 1 post-doc, and 1 PhD student with expertise in the use of neurophysiological sensors to measure human social, cognitive, and affective states in ecologically valid settings. Crew 294 will be testing several neurophysiological sensors for the purpose of planning out future experimental studies. Specifically, the capabilities (ergonomics, bluetooth range, signal fidelity across distances) of several sensors will be tested within the Hab and during a few proposed EVAs, weather permitting.

We have two primary objectives:
To immerse ourselves within the simulation to better understand what a crew on Mars would experience in order to inform future study designs on similar populations in similar environments.
To test the feasibility of several neurophysiological sensors on ourselves (eye tracking, peripheral physiology, neuroimaging, audio, virtual reality) while at MDRS.
This mission will therefore provide our research team (crew 294) with greater knowledge about MDRS to design studies to propose to run in future visits.