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Simulated Astronaut Kinematics and Injury Risk for Piloted Lunar Landings and Launches While Standing

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Abstract

During future lunar missions, astronauts may be required to pilot vehicles while standing, and the associated kinematic and injury response is not well understood. In this study, we used human body modeling to predict unsuited astronaut kinematics and injury risk for piloted lunar launches and landings in the standing posture. Three pulses (2–5 g; 10–150 ms rise times) were applied in 10 directions (vertical; ± 10-degree offsets) for a total of 30 simulations. Across all simulations, motion envelopes were computed to quantify displacement of the astronaut’s head (max 9.0 cm forward, 7.0 cm backward, 2.1 cm upward, 7.3 cm downward, 2.4 cm lateral) and arms (max 25 cm forward, 35 cm backward, 15 cm upward, 20 cm downward, 20 cm lateral). All head, neck, lumbar, and lower extremity injury metrics were within NASA’s tolerance limits, except tibia compression forces (0–1543 N upper tibia; 0–1482 N lower tibia; tolerance—1350 N) and revised tibia index (0.04–0.58 upper tibia; 0.03–0.48 lower tibia; tolerance—0.43) for the 2.7 g/150 ms pulse. Pulse magnitude and duration contributed over 80% to the injury metric values, whereas loading direction contributed less than 3%. Overall, these simulations suggest piloting a lunar lander vehicle in the standing posture presents a tibia injury risk which is potentially outside NASA’s acceptance limits and warrants further investigation.

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Abbreviations

2.7 g/150 ms:

Half-sinusoidal pulse with 2.7 g (26.5 m/s2) peak acceleration and 150 ms rise time

2 g/50 ms:

Half-sinusoidal pulse with 2 g (19.6 m/s2) peak acceleration and 50 ms rise time

5 g/10 ms:

Half-sinusoidal pulse with 5 g (49 m/s2) peak acceleration and 10 ms rise time

ACL:

Anterior cruciate ligament

AIS:

Abbreviated injury scale

Ant-post:

Anterior-posterior

ATD:

Anthropomorphic test device

BrIC:

Brain injury criterion

CG:

Center of gravity

FE:

Finite element

GHBMC:

Global human body models consortium

HBM:

Human body model

HIC:

Head injury criterion

IARV:

Injury assessment reference value

LCL:

Lateral collateral ligament

M50-PS:

GHBMC average-male simplified pedestrian model

MCL:

Medial collateral ligament

NASA:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

N ij :

Neck injury criterion

PCL:

Posterior cruciate ligament

PMHS:

Post-mortem human subject

RTI:

Revised Tibia index

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a NASA Human Research Program Student Augmentation Award to NASA Grant No. NNX16AP89G. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the GHBMC, NASA, or KBR. All simulations were run with the support of Cody Stevens and Adam Carlson.

Conflict of interest

Dr. Stitzel and Dr. Gayzik are members of Elemance, LLC, which provides academic and commercial licenses of the GHBMC-owned human body computer models.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Wake Forest School of Medicine, 575 N. Patterson Ave, Suite 530, Winston-Salem, NC, 27101, USA

    Mitesh Lalwala, Bharath Koya, Karan S. Devane, F. Scott Gayzik, Joel D. Stitzel & Ashley A. Weaver

  2. Virginia Tech-Wake Forest Center for Injury Biomechanics, 575 N. Patterson Ave, Suite 530, Winston-Salem, NC, 27101, USA

    Mitesh Lalwala, Bharath Koya, Karan S. Devane, F. Scott Gayzik, Joel D. Stitzel & Ashley A. Weaver

  3. Department of Biostatistics and Data Science, Wake Forest School of Medicine, 525 Vine Street, Winston-Salem, NC, 27101, USA

    Fang-Chi Hsu

  4. KBR, 2400 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX, 77058, USA

    Keegan M. Yates & Nathaniel J. Newby

  5. NASA Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, TX, 77058, USA

    Jeffrey T. Somers

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  1. Mitesh Lalwala
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Correspondence to Ashley A. Weaver.

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Lalwala, M., Koya, B., Devane, K.S. et al. Simulated Astronaut Kinematics and Injury Risk for Piloted Lunar Landings and Launches While Standing. Ann Biomed Eng 50, 1857–1871 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-022-03002-2

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