Abstract
In NASA’s strategy for continued expeditions human explorers are expected to undertake long duration missions which will increase the requirement for maintaining good health in instances of extreme conditions including higher radiation exposure and lower gravity environment. These circumstances pose greater challenges to the astronaut such as metabolic stress, decompressions sickness and radiation exposure. To support the health and performance of the astronaut there is an essential need to monitor their status in the space suit. In this paper a prototype low-power, wireless physiological monitoring system (VPack) is presented. Multiple non-invasive sensors are integrated into a wearable device that can be used to monitor the health and wellness of space suit occupant during extra vehicular activities (EVA). The integrated software and hardware interoperability capabilities are outlined here with inclusion of medical informatics and wireless network communication.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Williams DR (2002) Bioastronautics: optimizing human performance through research and medical innovations. Nutrition 18:794–796
Houtchens BA (1993) Medical-care systems for long-duration space missions. Clin Chem 39(1):13–21
Terster (1998) Model-directed autonomous systems, (presentation) James Kurien, Autonomous Systems Group, Computational Sciences Division, NASA-Ames, June 1998
Dorland WD (2002) Health management for NASA second-generation reusable launch vehicles. AI Signal Research Inc. 256-551-0008. Article in Sep 2002 MFPT Forum
Newman DJ (2000) Life in extreme environments: how will humans perform on Mars? Gravit Space Biol Bull 13(2):35–48
Risin D (2009) Risk of inability to adequately treat an ill or injured crew member. In: McPhee JC, Charles JB (eds) Human health and performance risks of space exploration missions. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas pp 239–252
Benhaddou D, Balakrishnan M, Yuan X, Chen J, Rungta M, Barton R, Yang H (2009) Wireless sensor networks for space applications: network architecture and protocol enhancements. Sens Transducers J 7:203–212, Special Issue “MEMS: From Micro Devices to Wireless Systems”
Zhong R, Hail MA, Hellbruck H (2013) CCN-WSN – a lightweight, flexible content-centric networking protocol for wireless sensor networks. In: IEEE eighth international conference on intelligent sensors, sensor networks and information processing, pp 123–128
Balakrishnan M et al (2008) In-channel service preemptions for emergency medium access in healthcare sensor networks. In: MILCOM 2008, IEEE, San Diego, November 2008
Acknowledgments
This project was supported under a coop agreement grant with the Space Partnership Development division of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL. We acknowledge valuable input of content and expert consultation from Dr. Benhaddou in preparing this manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rafiq, A. (2015). Space Crew Health Monitoring. In: Benhaddou, D., Al-Fuqaha, A. (eds) Wireless Sensor and Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2468-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2468-4_7
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-2467-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2468-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)