EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MISSION CONTROL AND SPACE CREWS IS ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESSFUL TASK PERFORMANCE AND MISSION SAFETY. THE IMPORTANCE OF TEAM COMMUNICATION IS HEIGHTENED WHEN UNFORESEEN PROBLEMS ARISE SUCH AS SYSTEM FAILURES THAT ARE TIME-CRITICAL AND REQUIRE EXTENSIVE COORDINATION AND COLLABORATION BETWEEN SPACE AND GROUND CREWS. DURING LONG DURATION MISSIONS AND MISSIONS BEYOND LOW EARTH ORBIT SPACE-GROUND COMMUNICATIONS WILL INVOLVE DELAYS UP TO 20 MINUTES ONE WAY A REALITY THAT POSES A FORMIDABLE CHALLENGE TO TEAM COMMUNICATION AND TASK PERFORMANCE. THIS PROJECT WILL DETERMINE HOW TRANSMISSION DELAYS IMPACT TEAM COMMUNICATION TEAMWORK AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO VARYING TASK DEMANDS AND MEDIA CONSTRAINTS. A SERIES OF FOUR STUDIES WILL BE CONDUCTED INVOLVING LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS AND RESEARCH IN SPACE-ANALOG ENVIRONMENTS. THE OVERALL AIM OF THE PROPOSED RESEARCH IS TO DEVELOP AND VALIDATE PROTOCOLS SUPPORTING MISSION CONTROL SPACE CREW COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATIONDURING LONG-DURATION SPACE MISSIONS. SPECIFIC PROJECT GOALS ARE:(1)DETERMINE THE IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION DELAYS ON COMMUNICATION TEAMWORK AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO VARYING TASK DEMANDS I.E. PROCEDURAL TASKS VS. TASKS REQUIRING ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING AND DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION MEDIA (VOICE VS. TEXT).(2)DEVELOP AND VALIDATE MEASURES TO ASSESS AND CHARACTERIZE TEAMCOMMUNICATION EFFECTIVENESS AND TASK PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO DIFFERENT OPERATIONAL TASKS.(3)DEVELOP AND VALIDATE COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS TO SUPPORT JOINT PROBLEM SOLVING AND DECISION MAKING BY MISSION CONTROLLERS AND SPACE CREWS DURING PERIODS OF ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION.