Summary Results from the Assessment of Psychology in Extreme Environments (APEX) Standardized Suite

INTRODUCTION: Future space exploration missions to the Moon and Mars will require small teams of astronauts to work and live in an extreme circumstance including long-term isolation and confinement. While there has been extensive research in space and space analog settings, the characterization of behavioral health, interpersonal relationships, team functioning, and performance has been difficult due to small sample sizes. To address this, we administered and iteratively refined a standard suite of measures called the Assessment of Psychology in Extreme Environments (APEX) Suite to individuals and teams in isolation and used this data to characterize key behavioral health, team and performance risks over time.

METHODS: Data were collected with the APEX Suite on 121 individuals in 40 teams living and working in isolated and confinement. The sample included astronauts in space for 150-350 days, and in terrestrial analogs from 45-240 days. The APEX Suite included a set of validated self-report measures, performance tests, and physiological biomarkers that quantify individual and team-level responses to the conditions expected for individuals and teams operating in long-duration, extreme environments. Data were harmonized across settings, allowing for analyses.

RESULTS: We will present results examining key behavioral health, interpersonal relationships, team functioning and performance metrics over time in isolation, as well as a comparison of astronauts on the International Space Station with research analog astronauts. Example results include no incidents of clinically elevated depression across the sample. For affect and stress, some temporal trends were observed, including a decrease in positive affect over time; however, negative affect and stress showed substantial interindividual variability and appeared to be more strongly associated with situational stressors than with duration in isolation.

DISCUSSION: We will discuss the implications of our results for informing and prioritizing countermeasures for future exploration missions. We also will describe how research and operations can leverage the APEX suite to test the effectiveness countermeasures in small samples and prepare for future exploration-class missions.