Crewmember and mission control personnel interactions during International Space Station missions.
BACKGROUND
Reports from astronauts and cosmonauts, studies from space analogue environments on Earth, and our previous research on the Mir Space Station have identified a number of psychosocial issues that can lead to problems during long-duration space missions. Three of these issues (time effects, displacement, leader role) were studied during a series of long-duration missions to the International Space Station (ISS).


METHODS
As in our previous Mir study, mood and group climate questions from the Profile of Mood States or POMS, the Group Environment Scale or GES, and the Work Environment Scale or WES were completed weekly by 17 ISS crewmembers (15 men, 2 women) in space and 128 American and Russian personnel in mission control.


RESULTS
The results did not support the presence of decrements in mood and group cohesion during the 2nd half of the missions or in any specific quarter. The results did support the predicted displacement of negative feelings to outside supervisors in both crew and mission control subjects on all six questionnaire subscales tested. Crewmembers related cohesion in their group to the support role of their commander. For mission control personnel, greater cohesion was linked to the support role as well as to the task role of their leader.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings from our previous study on the Mir Space Station were essentially replicated on board the ISS. The findings suggest a number of countermeasures for future on-orbit missions, some of which may not be relevant for expeditionary missions (e.g., to Mars).
Kanas
Nick A
NA
University of California/San Francisco and Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, (116A), 4150 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA. nick.kanas@ucsf.edu
Salnitskiy
Vyacheslav P
VP
Boyd
Jennifer E
JE
Gushin
Vadim I
VI
Weiss
Daniel S
DS
Saylor
Stephanie A
SA
Kozerenko
Olga P
OP
Marmar
Charles R
CR
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D018480:Astronauts / Q000523:psychology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012426:Russia; D013026:Space Flight; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States