LUMO: A MOBILE EXECUTION TOOL FOR THE EXPLORATION OF PLANETARY SURFACES

Central to any human effort in space is the fluid and reliable execution of technical, operational, and scientific plans by astronauts. Geologist astronauts in particular must accommodate the unique work-flow challenges of ever-changing conditions during planetary surface missions. To support this work-flow, we've developed Lumina Mobile (LuMo), a cuff-mounted electronic prototype that supports the execution of planned science and operation activities during planetary surface missions. LuMo’s interface is designed to accommodate the unique needs of astronauts performing extravehicular activities on a planetary surface, who must often dynamically re-plan in the face of unforeseen circumstances from complex and time-constrained plans. LuMo allows astronauts to view an optimized version of planned activities with timing information indicating how far ahead or behind schedule the astronauts are in the plan. With plan data tailored to the astronauts’ needs, LuMo encourages astronauts to stay on-task, on-time, and make informed decisions. The final design of LuMo is the result of extensive background and ethnographic research on extravehicular activities and planetary surface missions. Three rounds of usability testing was conducted with a total of 12 user sessions to reach the final design. Each usability test was comprised of a planetary surface mission simulation where users performed mock geological science tasks using LuMo.