The Life Sciences Glovebox will be the site of most of the crew operations associated with the non-human life sciences research on Space Station Freedom. For this reason, it is imperative that the Glovebox provides an enclosed work volume that accommodates the many diverse life science procedures which will be performed. To meet this challenge, the Biological Flight Research Projects Office conducted a study to identify a design concept which best accommodates the various procedures.
Two candidate Glovebox work volume concepts were developed; one in which two operators worked side-by-side (the “Fineg” work volume), and one that conformed to the reach envelope of a single operator (the “wrap-around” work volume). To evaluate the different concepts, an experimental methodology using operational criteria was established. Six test volunteers participated in this study, including 4 experienced biologists, a 5th percentile Japanese female, and a 95th percentile American male.
Each volunteer was asked whether he or she could see and reach specific regions within each work volume. Each volunteer then performed a series of discrete tasks within each of the candidate work volumes. Performance was measured by pre-established criteria including the time to perform the tasks, the number of errors and body contortions, and other indicators of performance difficulty. Personal assessments of the different concepts were revealed in structured interviews after each volunteer performed the tasks. Based on the results, the wrap-around work volume concept was judged to be superiorto the Fineg concept.