Adjustable Automation for Lunar Habitat Control

A Lunar habitat will require a level of automation that is much greater than previous human space missions. The complexity of the habitat, the distance (and time delay) between the habitat and ground controllers and the fact that the habitat may be uncrewed for periods of time all point towards increased automation of the habitat. NASA JSC is developing an integrated testbed for exploring operational concepts for a Lunar habitat that includes significant automation. The testbed allows for early investigation of the hardware and software design decisions and their impacts on operating a Lunar habitat. The testbed also allows for investigation into the robustness of different automation concepts with respect to failures and perturbations of the system. The testbed consists of both dynamic simulations of habitat systems and some physical hardware-in-the-loop. An early version of the testbed has a dynamic simulation of life support, crew and EVA integrated with a state-based power distribution simulation. The testbed has been used to explore the use of adjustably automated standard operating procedures for routine control of habitat functions and for responding to malfunctions.