Crew time and workload in the EDEN ISS greenhouse in Antarctica

• Published in: Life Sciences in Space Research
• Main Authors: Zeidler, Conrad, Woeckner, Gerrit, Schöning, Johannes, Vrakking, Vincent, Zabel, Paul, Dorn, Markus, Schubert, Daniel, Steckelberg, Birgit, Stakemann, Josefine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021
• Subjects: Systemanalyse Raumsegment; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://elib.dlr.de/143406/; https://elib.dlr.de/143406/1/2021_Paper_Crew%20time%20and%20workload%20in%20the%20EDEN%20ISS%20greenhouse%20in%20Antarctica_Zeidler.pdf

The goal of the EDEN ISS project is to research technologies for future greenhouses as a substantial part of planetary surface habitats. In this paper, we investigate crew time and workload needed to operate the space analogue EDEN ISS greenhouse on-site and remotely from the Mission Control Center. Within the almost three years of operation in Antarctica, different vegetable crops were cultivated, which yielded an edible biomass of 646 kg during the experiment phase 2018 and 2019. Operating in such a remote environment, analogue to future planetary missions, both greenhouse systems and remote support capabilities must be carefully developed and assessed to guarantee a reliable and efficient workflow. The investigation of crew time and workload is crucial to optimize processes within the operation of the greenhouse. For the Antarctic winter seasons, 2019 and 2020, as well as the summer season 2019/2020, the workload of the EDEN ISS greenhouse operators was assessed using the NASA Task Load Index. In addition, crew time was measured for the winter season 2019. The participants consisted of on-site operators, who worked inside the EDEN ISS greenhouse in Antarctica and the DLR remote support team, who worked in the Mission Control Center at the DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen (Germany). The crew time results show that crew time for the whole experiment phase 2019 required by the on-site operator team 2019 is approximately four times higher than the crew time of the corresponding remote support team without considering planning activities for the next mission. The total crew time for the experiment phase 2019 amounts to 694.5 CM-h or 6.31 CM-h/kg. With the measurements of the experiment phase 2019 it was possible to develop a methodology for crew time categorization for the remote support activities, which facilitates the analysis and increases the comparability of crew time values. In addition, the development of weekly and monthly crew time demand over the experiment phase is presented. The workload ...