Performance Assessment in the PILOT Experiment On Board Space Stations Mir and ISS.

Background: The aim of this investigation into the performance and reliability of Russian cosmonauts in hand-controlled docking of a spacecraft on a space station (experiment PILOT) was to enhance overall mission safety and crew training efficiency. The preliminary findings on the Mir space station suggested that a break in docking training of about 90 d significantly degraded performance.

Methods: Intensified experiment schedules on the International Space Station (ISS) have allowed for a monthly experiment using an on-board simulator.

Wireless Monitoring of Changes in Crew Relations during Long-Duration Mission Simulation.

Group structure and cohesion along with their changes over time play an important role in the success of missions where crew members spend prolonged periods of time under conditions of isolation and confinement. Therefore, an objective system for unobtrusive monitoring of crew cohesion and possible individual stress reactions is of high interest. For this purpose, an experimental wireless group structure (WLGS) monitoring system integrated into a mobile psychophysiological system was developed.

Changes in the autonomic reactivity pattern to psychological load under long-term microgravity--twelve men during 6-month spaceflights.

A complex psychophysiological test battery was applied to twelve subjects during long-term spaceflights. This experiment was designed to assess the psychophysiological reactivity to acute psychological stressors. A set of noninvasive physiological measurements (electrocardiogram, electromyogram, blood pressure, skin conductance, peripheral skin temperature) was used to describe the reactivity of the autonomic nervous system and the cardiovascular system to an induced series of changes between mental activity load and quiet relaxation.

Differences in the autonomic reactivity pattern to psychological load in patients with hypertension and rheumatic diseases.

As a ground-based reference study to a space experiment, a complex psychophysiological test battery (heart rate, blood pressure, skin conductance, finger temperature, forearm electromyogram during psychological loading task solving) was developed and first applied on two cohorts of subjects with different blood pressure levels at rest (53 hypertensive patients, and 30 normal controls). The data describing autonomic reactivity could be differentiated by cluster analysis into four Autonomic Outlet Types (AOT). The method was subsequently applied to 20 patients with systemic Lupus erythematosus and 13 subjects with rheumatoid arthritis to work out a discriminant function for classifying and testing it's validity.