Using Systems Engineering to Develop an Integrated Crew Health and Performance System to Mitigate Risk for Human Exploration Missions

New space exploration missions are currently being designed to take humanity beyond Low EarthOrbit (LEO) to cis-lunar space, the lunar surface, and eventually to Mars. These missions carryincreased risks due to a number of factors, including distance from Earth, exposure to deep spacehazards, reduced capacity and ability to resupply and evacuate, and increased communication delays.As distance from Earth grows and mission length increases, a growing proportion of overall missionrisk can be attributed to the “human system.” Almost twenty years ago, the Institute of Medicine in theUnited States recommended the early and complete integration of the human system into thespacecraft and mission design process to mitigate this increased risk inherent in exploration missions.Exploration missions will require increasing levels of crew self-sufficiency that will challenge thecurrent operational paradigms established in LEO. Enabling progressive Earth independence requiresmanagement of the increasingly complex interactions among spacecraft systems and integration of allthe data and functions that affect human health and performance into one coordinated system – theCrew Health and Performance (CHP) system. This system is a critical spacecraft system that isanalogous to other systems such as propulsion, guidance and navigation, or avionics. Design andintegration of the CHP system requires the evidence-based merger of typically disparate disciplinessuch as medicine, human factors, and physiological support system design, using systems engineering(SE) practices. The approach described here enables spacecraft and mission designers to align thescope of a CHP system with mission specific requirements, decrease risk to the crew, and increase theprobability of mission success.