Team training with variable leadership roles and simulated communication delays¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

For crews facing Earth-independent operation, the review recommends team training that exercises coordination under realistic social and temporal conditions. It states that "team training should include practice sessions with variable leadership roles, conflict resolution, and communication delays or failures so that coordination skills are exercised under realistic social and temporal conditions". It also draws on aviation crew resource management methods such as briefing interviews, cross-referencing, appropriate challenge of authority, and recovery from communication failures, integrated into pre-flight selection and team preparation.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Practice must occur among the team, not among sole individuals; leadership roles should be shared and shift based on expertise and operational demands

Constraints¶

• Motivated by Mars-mission communication delays approaching 20 minutes each way that eliminate rapid consultation with mission control

Target Learners¶

• astronaut crews and multidisciplinary mission-control, medical, and engineering teams

Target Learning Goals¶

• shared mental models, communication protocols, backup behavior, adaptive leadership, conflict resolution

Related Strategies¶

• Stress inoculation training for crews operating without external support
• Phase-based behavioral readiness training spanning pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight
• Adaptive-resolution simulation: allocate more LLM calls to educationally consequential moments and compress routine transitions

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Dickerson Broderick L., Gonzalez Drew E., Comfort Paul, Hardy John G., Hines Kelly E., Anderson Danielle N., Macaulay Timothy R., Stankovic Aleksandra, Twine Corey A. (2026). Spaceflight human optimization and performance: positioning astronauts in an operational framework to promote health, fitness, and mission readiness. Frontiers in Physiology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2026.1950155