Overview:
NASA is seeking to identify Autonomous Therapeutic Modules (ATMs) and behavioral health monitoring systems capable of supporting crew mental health during long-duration exploration missions. The goal is to evaluate these systems as a countermeasure to mitigate stress and behavioral health risks during long-term space flight where the constraints of the environment limit traditional methods such as real-time counsel.
Background:
Maintaining crew mental health is a high priority during long-duration exploration missions since they risk both overall crew safety and mission success. During spaceflight, astronauts face unique challenges such as austere environments, mass/volume constraints, limited bandwidth, and communication delays of up to 20 minutes which make traditional real-time mental health support such as private psychological conferences and pharmacological interventions impractical or risky. The primary focus is to identify ATMs and passive behavior monitoring that can provide consistent and effective mental/behavioral health support in environments with long communication delays or limited connectivity.
Constraints:
Potential solutions should:
- Be built on evidence-based psychotherapy frameworks (i.e. CBT, Mindfulness)
- Demonstrate clinical effectiveness or efficacy
- Be easily activated by a crew member without assistance
- Have minimal mass, volume, and power requirements
- Be able to operate independently of earth connectivity
- Adhere to privacy and security requirements (i.e. HIPAA)
Possible Solution Areas:
- Autonomous Therapeutic Modules
- Software-based – Digital therapeutics
- Neuromodulation devices
- Behavioral Health Monitoring systems
- Digital phenotyping – sleep, speech, or social interaction monitoring to detect mental or cognitive health disturbances
- Physiological monitoring for behavior/emotional wellbeing insights
Related Tech Needs:
NASA Seeking: Clinical decision support for remote healthcare
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