Effects of Spaceflight Operation Complexity and Training on Operation Error

To investigate how the spaceflight operation complexity and training affect operation errors of spaceflight tasks, a two-factor experiment was designed and conducted. Nine participants performed eighteen spacecraft operation units which were divided into three complexity levels during two training stages. Based on the experiment data, the changes of average operation times and errors at the initial and final stages were analyzed; the equations of linear regression between the complexity and the average operation errors were established. The results showed that the average operation errors were significantly raised with the complexity at the initial stage (P=0.03, 0.02). The operation errors of the low and middle complexity levels at the final stage were much less than those at the initial stage (P<0.05).The operation errors were significantly correlated to the complexity levels at the two stages. It implies that suitable operation complexity and sufficient training are two of the effective ways to ensure the reliability of astronaut operations during spaceflight.