Three prominent scientists from NASA Ames Research Center will be
among the featured speakers at a conference in May designed to
encourage dialogue and facilitate networking for mission operations.

Co-sponsored by NASA and the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary
Research (IAIR), “Mission.Systems 2002: Challenges for the 21st
Century,” will be held May 29-31 at the Hilton Resort and Marina in
Nassau Bay next to NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.

“As a forum, Mission.Systems 2002 represents an unprecedented
opportunity for interaction between all those supporting mission
operations and the operations centers,” said conference chairman
Steven Gonzalez of the Johnson Space Center. “We hope that the
resulting dialogues and partnerships will advance new methods of
approach and operations technologies for NASA and the international
operations community.”

Among the featured speakers at the conference will be Judith Orasanu,
manager of the Human and Organizational Risk Management element of
the Engineering for Complex System (ECS) program at Ames. Orasanu is
scheduled to discuss “Risk Perception and Risk Management in
Aviation” at 1:10 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, May 29, the first day of the
three-day conference.

“Judith’s groundbreaking work in crew resource management in
aviation, which is now standardized in the airline industry’s
training programs, is a very nice connection to mission operations,”
said Patricia Jones, deputy chief of the Human Factors Research and
Technology Division and manager of the Knowledge Engineering for
Safety and Success project for the ECS program at Ames.

On Thursday, May 30, Jones is scheduled to discuss “Distributed Teams
and Operations Risk Management,” at 2 p.m. CDT. Jones also is
scheduled to participate in a panel discussion entitled “Control
Center Constellation for the Next Century” starting at 3:40 p.m. CDT.

“There are many critical research issues in operations environments
that are at the intersection of advanced automation and knowledge
management technologies and the human teams and organizations that
use those technologies to make decisions and perform their mission,”
said Jones. “The ECS program is especially interested in modeling
risk management practices and providing tools to enable more
effective risk identification, assessment and mitigation. Modeling
the risks related to human performance, teams, and organizations is a
great match to the Human Factors Research and Technology Division.

On the third and final day of the conference, Friday, May 31, Kelly
Snook of Ames is scheduled to participate in a session starting at
2:50 p.m. CDT entitled “Engaging the World’s Interest.” The
discussion will focus on encouraging new collaborations between
international space programs, providing opportunities for
contributions by emerging space programs, and organizing educational
and entertainment programs intended to encourage young people to get
involved.

The conference will focus on three themes. The first day’s theme,
“Operations: Past, Present and Future,” will examine the evolution of
the current mission control concept, lessons in previous space
operations, ideas for future mission control centers and mission
control centers that have been developed in industry.

The second day’s theme, “Internationalizing Operations and Research
Infrastructure,” will focus on technologies and processes to enable
distributed and international operations. Among the technologies to
be discussed will be networking, storage technology, knowledge
management and collaborative tools. The second day will also focus
on the dissemination, integration and sharing of information among
international offices.

The third day’s theme, “International Collaboration and Partnership,”
will examine social issues, including training of international
teams, dealing with intercultural differences, engaging the world’s
interest in space, planning for the future and establishing new laws
and policy for space operations.

The conference will conclude with a group discussion, “Reaching the
Vision: Paths to Inverting the Paradigm.” Additional information
about the conference and the registration process is available at:

http://www.mission.systems.org