Ergonomic Evaluation of the General Purpose Workstation on a Space Mission

• Published in: Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting 1995-10, Vol.39 (10), p.664-668
• Main Authors: Whitmore, Mihriban, Mount, Frances E.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1541-9312; 1071-1813; 2169-5067
• DOI: 10.1177/154193129503901026

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory (HFEL) at the Johnson Space Center conducted an ergonomic evaluation of the General Purpose Workstation (GPWS), a glovebox-type workstation flown on one of the Spacelab Life Sciences missions. The HFEL study consisted of: (1) Crew evaluations via pre-flight, in-flight questionnaire and structured post-flight interview, and (2) Video analysis. Findings indicate that the workstation design was acceptable for performing dissection tasks. The crew reported that the task distribution between operators was completely acceptable. Based on the video analysis and the crew comments, the glove interface was found to be critical for crew comfort. A follow-up evaluation is planned for an upcoming mission to evaluate a materials science glovebox and the design impact on posture. Additional microgravity evaluations are planned to obtain objective data on postural changes while working at different gloveboxes.